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Early Medieval Introductions to the Holy Book: Adjuncts or Hermeneutic?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
In a famous passage on the training of those who wished to become wise in sacred letters, in effect, learned readers of the Christian scriptures, Cassiodorus wrote:
The first thing a student should do, having read [my] book is to go back and study carefully the works of those (introductores) who have written introductions to the sacred scriptures. We have found the following [useful]: Tyconius the Donatist; St Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana; Hadrian; Eucherius; and Junilius. I have carefully collected their works and bound them together into a collection so that through their various explanations and examples these men might make matters known who were previously unknown.
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References
1 Institutiones l.x.1-2, ed. RAB. Mynors (Oxford, 1937), 34; cf. T. O’Loughlin, Teachers and Code-Breakers: The Latin Genesis Tradition (Turnhout, 1999), 46–9, which examines the context in which Cassiodorus wrote. All translations are my own.
2 See O’Donnell, J.J., Cassiodorus (Berkeley, CA, 1979) for the general backgroundGoogle Scholar.
3 I use masculine language as Cassiodorus wrote within a male monastic context and imagined only male students undertaking the training he envisaged.
4 Alas, there is no extant copy of that collection.
5 See O’Donnell, Cassiodorus, 210; A. Souter, ‘An unrecorded reference to the Rules of Tyconius’, JThS, 11 (1910), 562–3; idem, ‘Cassiodorus’s copy of Euchcrius’s Instructiones’, JThS, 14 (1913), 69–72.
6 Institutiones, II, conclusio 9 (p. 163 in apparatu).
7 I use the edition of Martin, J., De doctrina Christiana, CChr.SL, 32 (Turnhout, 1962)Google Scholar.
8 For an example of how later writers put the techniques of De doctrina Christiana to work, cf. T. O’Loughlin, ‘Res, tempus, locus, persona: Adomnán’s cxcgctical method’, Innes Review, 48 (1997), 95–111.
9 Burkitt, F.C., ed., The Book of Rules of Tyconius (Cambridge, 1894); see the prooemiutn for Tyconius’s intentions.Google Scholar
10 In this regard it is interesting to note how he establishes a basic gospel story-line, and then reconciles other passages to it; cf. T. O’Loughlin, ‘Tyconius’ use of the canonical gospels’, Revue Bénédictine, 106 (1996), 229–33.
11 Cf. Bright, P., The Book of Rules of Tyconius: Its Purpose and Inner Logic (Notre Dame, IN, 1988)Google Scholar.
12 Cf. Fredriksen, P., ‘Tyconius and Augustine on the Apocalypse’, in Emmerson, R.K. and McGinn, B., eds, The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (1992), 20–37 Google Scholar.
13 De doctrina Christiana, III.xxx.42-xxxvii.56.
14 Burkitt’s edition is based on only six medieval manuscripts. Gustave Becker’s Catalogi Bibliothecarum Antiqui (Bonn, 1885) has only one reference to Tyconius: the catalogue from Corbie (c.t200) lists it among the contents of tome 172 of the library, the reference is problematic (see the appendix to this article) but refers to the whole work. Note also that Burkitt (xxviii) drew attention to another copy mentioned in a catalogue (c.1200) from Cluny.
15 Burkitt edited an epitome – another means by which Tyconius in an abbreviated form influenced the tradition – along with the main text (89-98); and on p. xxiii gave a stemma showing the influence of Tyconius on later writers in Latin.
16 See O’Loughlin, T., ‘Julian of Toledo’s Antikeimenon and the development of Latin exegesis’, Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association, 16 (1993), 80–98 Google Scholar, on the problem of inconsistencies; and idem, ‘Rei, tempus, locus, persona’, for a scries of applications of the notion of ‘recapitulatio’.
17 What little we know of Hadrian is summarized by Nazzaro, V., ‘Hadrian’, Encyclopedia of the Early Church, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1992), 1:369.Google Scholar
18 This can be found in PC 98, cols 1273–1312; cf. M. Geerard, Clavis patrum graecorum, 6 vols, CChr (Turnhout, 1974–98), 3:254, no. 6527.
19 The Latin translation presented in PG is by an early modem editor (cf. PC 98, col. 1271).
20 Both of his exegetical manuals to which Cassiodorus must be referring, the Formulae spiritalis intellegenliae and the [Líder] Instructionum, were edited by Karl Wotkc, Sancii Eucherii Lugdunensis [Opera], Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 31 (Vienna 1894).
21 The sole work upon which his reputation rests is the Instituía regularia diuinae legis, in Kihn, H., ed., Theodor von Mopsuestia und Junilius Africanus als Exegeten (Freiburg, 1880), 465- 528 Google Scholar; but a satisfactory text can be found in PL 68, cols 15–42.
22 For an analysis of Eucherius’ distinctions of the ‘senses of scripture’, cf. O’Loughlin, Teachers and Code-Breakers, 172–80; and idem, The symbol gives life: Eucherius of Lyons’ formula for exegesis’, in Finan, T. and Twomcy, V., eds, Scriptural Interpretation in the Fathers: Letter and Spirit (Dublin, 1995), 221–52.Google Scholar
23 For a introduction to the longstanding contribution of Junilius to Latin exegesis, cf. O’Loughlin, Teachers and Code-Breakers, 181–3.
24 II.xi-xvi, but it is a theme found throughout book II of the work.
25 See O’Loughlin, T., ‘Seeking the medieval view of the Song of Songs’, Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association, 18 (1995), 94–116 Google Scholar.
26 On allegory as the act of despising the text, cf. Cahill, M., ‘Reader-response criticism and the allegorizing reader’, Theological Studies, 57 (1996), 89–96 Google Scholar.
27 See O’Loughlin, T., ‘Christ and the Scriptures: the chasm between modern and pre-modern exegesis’, The Month, 259 (1998), 475–85 Google Scholar.
28 See O’Loughlin, T., Journeys on the Edges (2000), 38–41.Google Scholar
29 This is an aspect of his legacy within early medieval exegesis which has not received attention from scholars to date.
30 See T. O’Loughlin, ‘The controversy over Methuselah’s death: proto-chronology and the origins of the western concept of inerrancy’, Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale, 62 (1995), 182–225.
31 Cf. O’Loughlin, ‘Julian of Toledo’s Antikeimenon’.
32 Textbooks, of their nature, operate within a paradigm, and they perish with that paradigm without being recalled in the way that the works which generate a paradigm are recalled as classics; moreover, since the textbook attempts to digest the current state of information within an area, they disappear through obsolescence.
33 On the notion that a tradition is a continuity of teachers using the same basic textbooks, see O’Loughlin, Teachers and Code-Breakers, 12–17.
34 What would later be referred to as ‘Verbal inspiration’.
35 Isidore of Seville, whose exegesis builds upon the work of the introductores, shows this tendency in its developed form; cf. O’Loughlin, T., ‘Christ as the focus of Genesis exegesis in Isidore of Seville’, in Finan, T. andTwomcy, V., eds, Studies in Patristic Christology (Dublin, 1998), 144–62 Google Scholar.
36 De doctrina Christiana, II.viii.13.
37 Cf. Howorth, H.H., ‘The influence of St Jerome on the canon of the western Church’, JThS, 10 (1909), 481–96; 11 (1910), 321–47; 13 (1911), 1–18Google Scholar.
38 See Metzgcr, B.M., The Canon of the New Testament (Oxford, 1987)Google Scholar, 1: he distinguished between ‘a collection of authoritative books’ and ‘an authoritative collection of books’. For the background to the question of a canon, cf. Barton, J., The Spirit and the Letter: Studies in the Biblical Canon (1997)Google Scholar.
39 See p. 1 in apparatu.