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Medieval Exegesis #1
Exégèse Médiévale 1: les Quatre sens de l'ecriture
Henri de Lubac's four-volume study of medieval exegesis and theology is one of the most significant works in modern biblical studies. Now available for the first time in English, this volume stands on its own as an introduction and overview of the subject. It will be an essential addition to the libraries of all those studying in any field of biblical interpretation.
363 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1959
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345 people want to read
About the author
Henri de Lubac
206 books99 followersHenri-Marie de Lubac, SJ (1896-1991) was a French Jesuit priest who became a Cardinal of the Catholic Church, and is considered to be one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century. His writings and doctrinal research played a key role in the shaping of the Second Vatican Council.
De Lubac became a faculty member at Catholic Faculties of Theology of Lyons, where he taught history of religions until 1961. His pupils included Jean Daniélou and Hans Urs von Balthasar. De Lubac was created cardinal deacon by Pope John Paul II on February 2, 1983 and received the red biretta and the deaconry of S. Maria in Domnica, February 2, 1983. He died on September 4, 1991, Paris and is buried in a tomb of the Society of Jesus at the Vaugirard cemetery in Paris.
De Lubac became a faculty member at Catholic Faculties of Theology of Lyons, where he taught history of religions until 1961. His pupils included Jean Daniélou and Hans Urs von Balthasar. De Lubac was created cardinal deacon by Pope John Paul II on February 2, 1983 and received the red biretta and the deaconry of S. Maria in Domnica, February 2, 1983. He died on September 4, 1991, Paris and is buried in a tomb of the Society of Jesus at the Vaugirard cemetery in Paris.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 10, 2016
Argument: Medieval exegesis isn’t simply allegory, for it goes far beyond the method of ancient pagan sources. Rather, it seeks the “spirit” of Scripture.
Henri de Lubac is a master writer and theologian, but this book presents a challenge to the reader on a number of levels. De Lubac opens the door to a wide forest of patristic and medieval thinking--and he provides no map to navigate this forest. (Later volumes in the series do provide the map). That's not to say de Lubac fails to offer a model for medieval exegesis. He does. You just have to read for a while to find it. In what follows I will try to provide a model of medieval exegesis--or rather, foundational presuppositions.
P1: The letter teaches what happened, allegory what we should believe, moral what we should do, anagogical what we should hope for.
(P2) “For the doctrine of the two senses of Scripture and the doctrine of the relationship between the two testaments are in essence one and the same thing” (De Lubac 8).
In order to show that the “spiritual sense” of Scripture is not completely arbitrary, de Lubac notes that it is always tied to “discipline,” which implies a rule or manner (23ff). Scripture is sacrament and symbol, spirit and rationality (76). The implication is the letter of Scripture always points beyond itself. Scripture, like the world, is like a garment of the godhead.
But there is a problem in the sources. Most of us are familiar with the so-called "fourfold method" (history, allegory, tropology, anagogy). But medieval and patristic writers didn't always follow this model. Sometimes it was threefold, or maybe the terms were inverted. Is there a threefold distinction of Scripture, or a fourfold one? Sometimes authors collapsed anagogia into allegory.
Beginning with the fathers we note:
Body = history
Soul = tropology
Spirit = anagogy
The problem before the house: tropology was seen as an intermediary principle between body and spirit (140). There was a danger of introducing the “psuche” Scripture before its “pneuma.” This fails to respond to the intentions of the spirit. De Lubac highlights the problem: there “cannot be found in it an explicit allusion to the Mystery that is at once historical and spiritual, interior and social, a Mystery which is recapitulated in the other formula by “allegoria” (140-141). So which method is correct and when did the fourfold start? De Lubac doesn't really tell us.
Unity and Harmony
Thesis: Christian tradition understands that Scripture has two meanings: literal and spiritual (pneumatic) and these two meanings have the same relationship to each other as do the Old and New Testaments to each other (225). The spiritual meaning discerns internal causes. The spirit is contained and hidden in the letter. History as a key to understanding the present is more and more transformed into allegory of the future (230).
Typology is not enough. It needs allegory, allegory understood as the pneumatic sense (259). Typology simply tells that A prefigures A’. It says nothing of the opposition or unity between the two testaments.
Conclusion and evaluation.
"High hopes and empty pockets" may be the best way to summarize this book. This is one of those instances where de Lubac's brilliant reputation actually worked to his disadvantage. Given the rich spirituality of the patristics and medievals and de Lubac's own brilliant handling of Augustinian Supernaturalism, one rightly expected this book to be a stunning tour de force. It wasn't.
Given what I've read of de Lubac on the social dimension of Christianity and his take on the Surnaturel, I expected this book to outline the failure of liberal and fundmentalist hermeneutics (including, obviously, the failure of modernity), a brief section outlining the medievals' take on Scripture, the structure of allegory, and how to do allegory in today's church.
As tedious as this book was at times, it is a necessary read if one is interested in reading de Lubac's corpus. Fortunately, volume two appears to be more smooth, compact, and focused on the main issues. It was that de Lubac seemed to merely compile quotations of people who agree with him. While I suppose that makes his point, he is always bordering on overkill (I tried to pull this stunt on graduate level essays. The profs were not amused!). Still, at the end of the day when reading de Lubac, one knows one is in the presence of a master.
Henri de Lubac is a master writer and theologian, but this book presents a challenge to the reader on a number of levels. De Lubac opens the door to a wide forest of patristic and medieval thinking--and he provides no map to navigate this forest. (Later volumes in the series do provide the map). That's not to say de Lubac fails to offer a model for medieval exegesis. He does. You just have to read for a while to find it. In what follows I will try to provide a model of medieval exegesis--or rather, foundational presuppositions.
P1: The letter teaches what happened, allegory what we should believe, moral what we should do, anagogical what we should hope for.
(P2) “For the doctrine of the two senses of Scripture and the doctrine of the relationship between the two testaments are in essence one and the same thing” (De Lubac 8).
In order to show that the “spiritual sense” of Scripture is not completely arbitrary, de Lubac notes that it is always tied to “discipline,” which implies a rule or manner (23ff). Scripture is sacrament and symbol, spirit and rationality (76). The implication is the letter of Scripture always points beyond itself. Scripture, like the world, is like a garment of the godhead.
But there is a problem in the sources. Most of us are familiar with the so-called "fourfold method" (history, allegory, tropology, anagogy). But medieval and patristic writers didn't always follow this model. Sometimes it was threefold, or maybe the terms were inverted. Is there a threefold distinction of Scripture, or a fourfold one? Sometimes authors collapsed anagogia into allegory.
Beginning with the fathers we note:
Body = history
Soul = tropology
Spirit = anagogy
The problem before the house: tropology was seen as an intermediary principle between body and spirit (140). There was a danger of introducing the “psuche” Scripture before its “pneuma.” This fails to respond to the intentions of the spirit. De Lubac highlights the problem: there “cannot be found in it an explicit allusion to the Mystery that is at once historical and spiritual, interior and social, a Mystery which is recapitulated in the other formula by “allegoria” (140-141). So which method is correct and when did the fourfold start? De Lubac doesn't really tell us.
Unity and Harmony
Thesis: Christian tradition understands that Scripture has two meanings: literal and spiritual (pneumatic) and these two meanings have the same relationship to each other as do the Old and New Testaments to each other (225). The spiritual meaning discerns internal causes. The spirit is contained and hidden in the letter. History as a key to understanding the present is more and more transformed into allegory of the future (230).
Typology is not enough. It needs allegory, allegory understood as the pneumatic sense (259). Typology simply tells that A prefigures A’. It says nothing of the opposition or unity between the two testaments.
Conclusion and evaluation.
"High hopes and empty pockets" may be the best way to summarize this book. This is one of those instances where de Lubac's brilliant reputation actually worked to his disadvantage. Given the rich spirituality of the patristics and medievals and de Lubac's own brilliant handling of Augustinian Supernaturalism, one rightly expected this book to be a stunning tour de force. It wasn't.
Given what I've read of de Lubac on the social dimension of Christianity and his take on the Surnaturel, I expected this book to outline the failure of liberal and fundmentalist hermeneutics (including, obviously, the failure of modernity), a brief section outlining the medievals' take on Scripture, the structure of allegory, and how to do allegory in today's church.
As tedious as this book was at times, it is a necessary read if one is interested in reading de Lubac's corpus. Fortunately, volume two appears to be more smooth, compact, and focused on the main issues. It was that de Lubac seemed to merely compile quotations of people who agree with him. While I suppose that makes his point, he is always bordering on overkill (I tried to pull this stunt on graduate level essays. The profs were not amused!). Still, at the end of the day when reading de Lubac, one knows one is in the presence of a master.
June 19, 2014
De Lubac almost overwhelms one with the amount of Patristic and Medieval sources cited in this volume, but in a good way. And though he can be a bit difficult to follow at times, this work is a treasure chest for those who may have grown tired of an overly narrow Historical-Critical method of Biblical scholarship that has dominated the last century and a half.
January 19, 2020
Enjoyed this monumental work really fast for school. Loved especially the part where he discusses the unity between Old and New Testaments and how Jesus is consensus of both. “The spirit of the letter is Christ. The Gift prophesied by the Law is Christ. The New Testament is Christ. The Gospel is Christ” (p. 237)
December 19, 2024
Enjoyable! Especially as he points to how the spiritual sense (which allegory fits within) develops throughout medieval Europe, pointing back to Origen. Largely a sequel to his book on Origen and feels like a introductory historical surgery for volume 2. Many great quotes and copious amounts of evidence.
March 2, 2022
There's some good stuff in here, but it is buried under mountains of post-it-note style rambling. Reading this felt like reading a phone book without the benefit of having things in alphabetical order. He refers to so many figures from church history, but without giving dates or locations (except when sometimes buried in one of the ten thousand foot notes in the back of the book) you cannot really track with the arguments and progressions he's assuming. This thing is a real mess that could have benefited greatly from having a better editor to put it together. I wouldn't recommend anybody read this, for you'd like to waste a significant portion of your life that could be better spent elsewhere, and you can get the same kind of information elsewhere far easier.
October 5, 2025
An extraordinary (and encyclopedic) work in defense of the spiritual sense of scripture
August 12, 2011
If there was ever a book that made my reading of ancient sources puny and small, this is Without explicitly stating it, Lubac is offering his support for a four-fold model of Scriptural interpretation: history, allegory, tropology (morality), and anagogy (spiritual). Most important to Lubac is the legitimacy of a possible allegorical reading of scripture.
The basis of Lubac’s argument is strikingly simple: the early Church through the medieval period always practiced it. Most of the book is a historical recitation of the problems of untying the historical problems of what entailed a four-fold reading of scripture, where divergences and convergences occurred, origins of allegorical readings, and opposition to allegorical readings. The problem as I see it is that Lubac is unconvincing if you were already unconvinced. Both Lubac’s support for allegory and the implied opposition to allegory are, to my mind, a priori.
That being said, Lubac’s work is satisfying on three fonts: 1) for those convinced of the benefits of allegory—it provides a historical basis for such practice, 2) for those opposed—it provides a background for understanding your perceived opponent. And “perceived” is significant. Nowhere does Lubac discount the historical. In fact, he argues that the historical provide the foundation for the allegorical. This emerges out directly out of Lubac’s sacramental ontology of the materialist world, and 3) for those seeking an intellectually honest alternative to the historical-critical methodology of the 20th century. Lubac offers a possible reading of Scripture that is historically honest and grounded but seeks read Scripture in a broader context that is made alive through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit.
it. Lubac overwhelms us with a prodigal recitation of ancient and medieval sources. Lubac was clearly operating on another plane. His reading of those ancient sources is given with an overwhelming confidence that the reader knows exactly what he is talking about all the time. Frustratingly for me, I did not.
Despite overwhelming me at times, this book is a gem. It should be required reading for anyone who has grown tired of the historical-critical method of Biblical scholarship that has dominated the 20th century.
The basis of Lubac’s argument is strikingly simple: the early Church through the medieval period always practiced it. Most of the book is a historical recitation of the problems of untying the historical problems of what entailed a four-fold reading of scripture, where divergences and convergences occurred, origins of allegorical readings, and opposition to allegorical readings. The problem as I see it is that Lubac is unconvincing if you were already unconvinced. Both Lubac’s support for allegory and the implied opposition to allegory are, to my mind, a priori.
That being said, Lubac’s work is satisfying on three fonts: 1) for those convinced of the benefits of allegory—it provides a historical basis for such practice, 2) for those opposed—it provides a background for understanding your perceived opponent. And “perceived” is significant. Nowhere does Lubac discount the historical. In fact, he argues that the historical provide the foundation for the allegorical. This emerges out directly out of Lubac’s sacramental ontology of the materialist world, and 3) for those seeking an intellectually honest alternative to the historical-critical methodology of the 20th century. Lubac offers a possible reading of Scripture that is historically honest and grounded but seeks read Scripture in a broader context that is made alive through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit.
it. Lubac overwhelms us with a prodigal recitation of ancient and medieval sources. Lubac was clearly operating on another plane. His reading of those ancient sources is given with an overwhelming confidence that the reader knows exactly what he is talking about all the time. Frustratingly for me, I did not.
Despite overwhelming me at times, this book is a gem. It should be required reading for anyone who has grown tired of the historical-critical method of Biblical scholarship that has dominated the 20th century.
July 17, 2014
A classic, but a bit of a plod. Volume 1 of 3!!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews