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| Chapter VIII. Of spiritual knowledge.
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Chapter VIII.
Of spiritual knowledge.
But to return to the
explanation of the knowledge from which our discourse took its rise.
Thus, as we said above, practical knowledge is distributed among
many subjects and interests, but theoretical is divided into two
parts, i.e., the historical interpretation and the spiritual sense.
Whence also Solomon when he had summed up the manifold grace of the
Church, added: “for all who are with her are clothed with
double garments.”1872
But of
spiritual knowledge there are three kinds, tropological, allegorical,
anagogical,1873
| 1873 The meaning of
the four senses of Scripture here spoken of; viz., the historical,
tropological, allegorical, and anagogical, is well summed up in these
lines:
Litera, gesta docet; quid credas,
allegoria;
Moralis, quid agas; quo tendas
anagogia.
Or, as the lines are sometimes given:
Litera scripta docet; quod credas,
allegoria;
Quod speres, anagoge: quid agas,
tropologia.
Both Origen and Jerome had spoken of the
threefold sense of scripture, referring to the LXX. rendering of
Proverbs xxii. 20 (which Cassian quotes below): but in
general the Latin Fathers, and the Schoolmen after them, separated the
third of Origen’s senses; viz., the spiritual, into two, the
allegorical and the anagogical: and so the “fourfold” sense
became the established method of interpretation in the West. | of which we
read as follows in Proverbs: “But do you describe these things to
yourself in three ways according
to the largeness of your
heart.”1874
And so the
history embraces the knowledge of things past and visible, as it is
repeated in this way by the Apostle: “For it is written that
Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondwoman, the other by a free: but
he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he who was of
the free was by promise.” But to the allegory belongs what
follows, for what actually happened is said to have prefigured the form
of some mystery: “For these,” says he, “are the two
covenants, the one from Mount Sinai, which gendereth into bondage,
which is Agar. For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which is
compared to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her
children.” But the anagogical sense rises from spiritual
mysteries even to still more sublime and sacred secrets of heaven, and
is subjoined by the Apostle in these words: “But Jerusalem which
is above is free, which is the mother of us. For it is written,
Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not, break forth and cry, thou that
travailest not, for many are the children of the desolate more than of
her that hath an husband.”1875
The
tropological sense is the moral explanation which has to do with
improvement of life and practical teaching, as if we were to understand
by these two covenants practical and theoretical instruction, or at any
rate as if we were to want to take Jerusalem or Sion as the soul of
man, according to this: “Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem: praise thy
God, O Sion.”1876
And so these
four previously mentioned figures coalesce, if we desire, in one
subject, so that one and the same Jerusalem can be taken in four
senses: historically as the city of the Jews; allegorically as Church
of Christ, anagogically as the heavenly city of God “which is the
mother of us all,” tropologically, as the soul of man, which is
frequently subject to praise or blame from the Lord under this title.
Of these four kinds of interpretation the blessed Apostle speaks as
follows: “But now, brethren, if I come to you speaking with
tongues what shall I profit you unless I speak to you either by
revelation or by knowledge or by prophecy or by
doctrine?”1877
For
“revelation” belongs to allegory whereby what is concealed
under the historical narrative is revealed in its spiritual sense and
interpretation, as for instance if we tried to expound how “all
our fathers were under the cloud and were all baptized unto Moses in
the cloud and in the sea,” and how they “all ate the same
spiritual meat and drank the same spiritual drink from the rock that
followed them. But the rock was Christ.”1878
And this explanation where there is
a comparison of the figure of the body and blood of Christ which we
receive daily, contains the allegorical sense. But the knowledge, which
is in the same way mentioned by the Apostle, is tropological, as by it
we can by a careful study see of all things that have to do with
practical discernment whether they are useful and good, as in this
case, when we are told to judge of our own selves “whether it is
fitting for a woman to pray to God with her head
uncovered.”1879
And this
system, as has been said, contains the moral meaning. So
“prophecy” which the Apostle puts in the third place,
alludes to the anagogical sense by which the words are applied to
things future and invisible, as here: “But we would not have you
ignorant, brethren, concerning those that sleep: that ye be not sorry
as others also who have no hope. For if we believe that Christ died and
rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with
Him. For this we say to you by the word of God, that we which are alive
at the coming of the Lord shall not prevent those that sleep in Christ,
for the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the
voice of the archangel and with the trump of God; and the dead in
Christ shall rise first.”1880
In which
kind of exhortation the figure of anagoge is brought forward. But
“doctrine” unfolds the simple course of historical
exposition, under which is contained no more secret sense, but what is
declared by the very words: as in this passage: “For I delivered
unto you first of all what I also received, how that Christ died for
our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that
He rose again on the third day, and that he was seen of
Cephas;”1881
and:
“God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem
them that were under the law;”1882
or
this: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord the God is one
Lord.”1883
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