building all developments upon a secure basis of the literal sense. Nicolas combines these views. He does not ostensibly abandon the current opinions. His definitions, divisions, and terminology show that he is still a Schoolman.1 He repeats the phrase that God is the auctor principalis of Scripture, and follows Thomas Aquinas in the remark that the literal sense develops the meaning of the words, and the mystic sense the meaning of the things which the words signify. He even adopts the seven rules of Tichonius, and repeats the common definitions of the fourfold sense, and gives the stock illustration which was supposed to be furnished by the word "Jerusalem." On the other hand he evinces rare clearness and sobriety; he insists on the Protestant principle of referring to the original; he complains that the mystic sense had been almost allowed to choke (suffocare) the literal; he says that when the mystic exposition is discrepant from the literal it is indecens et incpta; he demands that the literal sense alone should be used in proving doctrines.5 Practically, therefore, he only admits two possible senses— 1 He characteristically meets the objection that "either man must now have a rib too few and be imperfect, or must have had one too many, and be a monster," by the remark that a thing may be superfluous, ratione individui, but not ratione speciei. 2 Thom. Aquin. Summa, 1, Qu. 1, art. 10. Nicolas says, "Habet ille liber hoc speciale, quod una litera continet plures sensus.' 3 To him are attributed the lines "Littera gesta docet, quae credas Allegoria, Moralis quid agas, quo tendas Anagogia;" but he only quotes them in his first preface, where he explains the four senses. In his second preface he compares Scripture to the book written within (the mystic sense) and without (the literal sense). "Vel saltem minus decens ceteris paribus et apta," he cautiously adds. Lyra firmly states his object in the words, "Cum Dei adjutorio inteado circa literalem sensum insistere, et paucas valde et breves expositiones mysticas aliquando interponere; licet raro.' Prol. 2. In 5 "Cum ex solo sensu literali et non ex mystico posset argumentum fieri ad probandum." He wrote eighty-five books of Postills, of which fifty were literal and thirty-five moralitates. The name Postilla is as old as the eighth century, and is derived from post illa (s.c. verba textus). If we read Nicolas of Lyra on Gen. i. after Hugo of St. Cher we see an immense advance. the "allegoric" division of the fourfold sense in Hugo, “Creavit ceim” becomes "He made the New Testament;" both Testaments are coelum, regarded on the side of Christ's Divinity, terra on the side of His humanity. The Old and New Testaments are symbolised by the coverings of the tabernacle (Ex. xxvi.) made opere plumario. "Pluma est acus, acus vero Christus, perforatus in passione, punget in secundo sicut acus," &c., &c. the literal and the mystic, and he founds the latter exclusively "Littera nempe nimis quae quondam obscura jacebat, He can Although the folios of Lyra almost immediately drove other commentaries, except the Glossa ordinaria, into He 1 See his note on Gen. xlix. 11, where he says, 66 Exponunt de Christi passione sed ista expositio videtur mihi magis mystica quam literalis.' refuses to see any allusion to the Trinity in Gen. xviii. 1. He modestly says that he has only written Scholastice et in modum exercitii, and subjects his views to the correction sanctae matris ecclesiae et cujuslibet sapientis. The vigour of his independence is well shown in his comment on Ezek. xl.-xlviii. (on which see Hengstenberg, Christologie, ii. 595; Merx, Joel, 331-335). He examines the views of Rashi, Jerome, Gregory, Richard, and Hugo of St. Victor, and differs from them all for the better. 3 Luther said, "Ego Lyranum ideo amo et inter optimos pono quod ubique diligenter retinet et persequitur historiam, quamquam auctoritate Patrum se vinci patitur et nonnunquam eorum exemplo deflectit . . . ad ineptas allegorias." Flacius (Catal. xviii. 809) speaks of him no less highly. In Luther's comment on Genesis (as Siegfried has proved) Lyra is traceable in almost every verse. Luther adds little to him except polemical and dogmatic biblicism. R. Simon, iii. 432. On Nicolas of Lyra see Fabric. Bibl. Lat. v. 114 sq.; Le Long, Bibl. Sacr. iii. 357, sq.; Rosenmüller, Hist. Int. v. 280; Flacius, Catal. test. Verit. xviii. Buddeus, Isagoge, 1420, 8q.; Meyer, Gesch. d. Schrifterkl. i. 109–121; Diestel, pp. 198-201; Merx, Joel, 305–335; Klausen, Hermeneutik, p. 210; Gratz, Gesch. d. Jud. vii. 513 &c. oblivion, he had no adequate flowers? The covered Jew, Sobota Levita koown as Paints of Es - 1433. prbided Additions to Niclas of Lym, which were purely reactionary and deserved the Cometom in tom stimg Expe gents of Matthias During1 Pazins repeats the 11 secolar misquotation of the letter killet and makes the shrish and sophistic remark that. Since God is the author of Scripture, and must have intended the literal sense, the Church decision always must be the literal sense, even when it seems least to resemble it" This armment, which has been repeated by a leading theologian in the last decale, makes God responsible for the fullles and ignorances of men. It recklessly confuses predestination with foreknowledge, and it amounts to saying that if a passage has been universally misunderstood, the misconception or perversion of it must have been a part of the intended meaning! Thus does theological error try to hide itself under the shield of omnipotence, and to fulminate its ignorances with the voice of infallibility. After the death of Nicolas of Lyra there was no important addition to the study of Scripture till the dawn of the Reformation. Wiclif, indeed, made the important remark that "the whole error in the knowledge of Scripture, and the source of its debasement and falsification by incompetent 1 See Paul. Burgens. Prol. Addit. In some lines by Angelo Rocca (B.bl. Theol. Epitome, 1594) he says, in a patronising way, "At brevis et facilis, non est spernenda tironi, Pope in the Dunciad (i. 153) says of the bookshelves of Colley Cibber,- and adds in his note that De Lyra's works were printed in five vast folio volumes in 1472. Pope may possibly have confused him with Harpsfield; if so he gives a wrong date. 2 He repeatedly returns to the unnatural glosses which Lyra's honesty and good sense had rejected. 3 Doring called his book Replicae defensivae. See Buddeus, Isag. p. 1433. 4 "Sensus literalis non debet dici ille qui repugnat ecclesiae auctoritati." Prol. in Additiones. So too Gerson, "Sensus literalis judicandus est prout ecclesia... determinavit." Propp. de sens. lit. 3. This dangerous notion is first found in Augustine, and is repeated by Cocceius, "Impossibile est aliquid fieri in mundo de quo verba Spiritus Saneti nsurpari possunt, ut id non intuitus sit Spiritus S. . . et non volveri legentem ea verba ei rei accommodare." persons, was the ignorance of grammar and logic;" 1 and Hus by the sobriety of his writings earned the praise of Luther, that he was 'skilful and weighty in the treatment of Scripture." The value of Savonarola's comments is exclusively practical. The Propositiones de sensu literali of Gerson († 1429) lay down some excellent principles, but he entirely nullifies their value by making the interpretation of Scripture depend exclusively on the authority of the Church.3 His comments on the Canticles and the Penitential Psalms, apart from their devotional remarks, are of the poorest description. Picus of Mirandola († 1494) was chiefly occupied with Platonism and Kabbalism. Tostatus († 1454), the "Stupor mundi qui scibile discutit omne," turned to but poor account his knowledge of Hebrew, used Nicolas of Lyra often without acknowledgment, and filled his interminable pages with irrelevant disquisitions, prolix speculations, and valueless questions.5 Turrecremata († 1468) blindly followed the old traditional lines. The Jewish convert, Jacob Perez of Valentia († 1492), mixed them up with the poorest lees of Rabbinism. John Wessel-Lux Mundi-who 1 Trialog. i. 8. On his views see Vaughan, ii. 315. Wielif is allegorical and dialectical in his own methods, but he said that "all things necessary in Scripture are contained in its proper literal and historic sense." 2 Savonarola's sermons are full of the fourfold sense (see Villari, i. 114, E. T.). See Propp. iii. vi. vii. Opp. 1, 3, ed. Du Pin. See Pic. Mirand. Opp. p. 71, and Cudworth, Intellect. Syst. 301, sq.; Archangelus, Artis Kabbal. Scriptores, 1587. Such as, Was Adam wiser than Solomon? Did he name the fish which could not be brought to him? If God ceased to create after the six days, how come creatures to be formed out of putrefaction? &c. In the New Testament, Was it fit that the Virgin should be married? Why did not Joseph ask her, quomodo conceperit? Quid faciebant parentes videntes eam praegnantem ? &c. On Matt. iii. 25, Quomodo movebatur ista columba?. Si fuit vera columba potuit moveri multipliciter. Uno modo a vento, &c., &c.! Seven folios were devoted to St. Matthew and one to the fifth chapter alone! His works occupied twenty-seven massive folios. The value of his verbal disquisitions on the New Testament may be estimated by the fact that he argues from the Vulgate. Hence his glaring errors about the word napaderyμarioaι and pîμa (Matt. i. 19; iv. 4). Not content with the seven rules of Tichonius he adds three more of the same kind. In Ps. xxii. 12 he makes the "garments" the letter and the mystic sense of the Old Testament. He makes the four-cornered Psaltery a type of the four Evangelists; the ten strings are the ten mysteries. The triangular harp indicates the three virtues, and the three marks of holiness (visio, tentatio, fruitio). The timbrel, which is beaten, is a type of Christ's sufferings. |