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Wyclif on Literal and Metaphorical
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2016
Extract
Origen encouraged readers of the Bible to try to penetrate beneath the literal meaning to deeper truths which lay hidden in the figurative and metaphorical senses. Augustine and Gregory the Great made it a commonplace in the mediaeval West that the literal sense is only one of several possible intepretations of a given passage, and that the figurative meanings are full of spiritual riches, and bring the reader closer to the Divine Author’s intentions. For Origen the Bible, taken spiritually, is the ultimate source of truth. The same high doctrine of the spiritual sense is apparent in the rules of Tichonius the Donatist, to which Augustine gave such lasting currency. Tichonius sees his rules as ‘keys’ to open up and ‘lamps’ to reveal the secrets hidden above all in the treasury of truth. He is interested in clarifying the spiritual senses.
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- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1987
References
1 Origen, , De Principiis IV, ed. Leipzig, P. Koetschau 1913Google Scholar, gives Origen’s main principles. See, too, Trigg, J. W., Origen, the Bible and Philosophy in the Third Century Church (Atlanta 1949) p. 120.Google Scholar
2 The Book of Rules of Tichonius, ed. F. C. Burkitt (Cambridge 1895) Preface p. 1/1-3.
3 Luther on Psalm 45.4, WA 3 p. 262.
4 Calvin on Genesis 27.27, CO 23 p. 406.
5 Calvin on Genesis 6.3, CO 23 p. 114.
6 Calvin on Genesis 6.14, CO 23 p. 123.
7 Calvin on Genesis 2.8, CO 23 p. 37.
8 Calvin, Harmony of the Gospels, on Luke 4.4, CO 46 pp. 605-6.
9 Luther on Deuteronomy 21.1, WA 14 p. 698.
10 Wyclif, De Ver. Sac. Scrip, i. 9/7-9.
11 Ibid., i. 174/11, 20.
12 Ibid., i. 11/2-5.
13 Ibid., i. 44/12-13.
14 Ibid., i. 11/4-14.
15 Ibid., i. 10/19-20.
16 Ibid., i. 94/11-12. On equivoca in this context, see Evans, G. R., The Logic and Language of the Bible: the Earlier Middle Ages (Cambridge 1984) pp. 140–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar and The Logic and Language of the Bible: the Road to Reformation (Cambridge 1985)pp. 114-19
17 On Andrew of St. Victor, see Smalley, B., The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (3rd ed. Oxford 1983) pp. 112–95.Google Scholar
18 On the sensus primarius, see Wyclif, De Ver. Sac. Scrip, i. 42/1.
19 PL 210 col. 722.
20 Luther on Psalm 6.6, WA 3 p. 71. Compare Luke 7.38.
21 Wyclif, De Ver. Sac. Scrip, i. 53/25.
22 Luther on Ecclesiastes, WA 20 pp. 8-9.
23 Wyclif, De Civ. Dom. i. 441/3-19.
24 Ibid., and De Ver. Sac. Scrip, i. 43/12 for a citation from Grosseteste.
25 De Civ. Dom. i. 440/29-30.
26 De Ver. Sac. Scrip, i. 86/11-13, 87/4 ff.
27 Anselm of Canterbury discusses truth of action in his De Ventate cap. 5, Opera Omnia, ed. F. S. Schmitt (Rome and Edinburgh 1938-68) 1 pp. 181-2.
28 Wyclif, De Ver. Sac. Scrip, i. 81/15-24.
29 Psalms 13. i, 52.1.
30 Wyclif, De Ver. Sac. Scrip, i. 87/10-12.
31 Revelation 5.5
32 Wyclif, De Ver. Sac. Scrip, i. 40/4-15.
33 Ibid., i. 40/16-17.
34 Ibid., i. 40/15-19.
35 Ibid., i. 41/5.
36 Ibid., i. 7/1-11.
37 ibid., i. 5/1 ff.
38 Ibid., i. 14/20-3.
39 Ibid., i. 15-16.
40 Ibid., i. 63/3-5.
41 Ibid., i. 63/24.
42 ibid., i. 64/3.
43 Ibid., i. 64/14-15.
44 Ibid., i. 65/6, Aquinas, De Potentia, Questions 6 and 7.
45 Wyclif, De Ver. Sac. Scrip, i. 65/18-19.
46 Ibid., i. 66/16.
47 Ibid., i. 66/22
48 Ibid., i. 74/13-75/1.
49 Ibid., i.75/8.
50 lbid., i. 75/14-15.
51 See The Logic and Language of the Bible: the Road to Reformation, pp. 114 ff.
52 Wyclif, De Ver. Sac. Scrip, i. 43/12.