mcginn2014 exegesis as metaphysics_eriugena and eckhart on reading genesis 1-3

8/19/2019 Mcginn2014 Exegesis as Metaphysics_eriugena and Eckhart on Reading Genesis 1-3

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EXEGESIS AS METAPHYSICS :ERIUGENA AND ECKHARTON READING GENESIS 1-3

bernard mcginn

The first three chapters of Genesis have attracted numerous interpre-ters in both Judaism and Christianity for millennia, with readingsranging from the crudely literal to refined philosophical, theological,and mystical interpretations. Two of the most profound Latin interpre-ters were the ninth-century Irish savant John Scottus Eriugena andthirteenth-century Dominican Meister Eckhart. Both wrote long com-mentaries on Genesis 1-3 in different genres, and both thinkers displayremarkable similarities, as well as some crucial differences. Withoutdenying the foundational role of the biblical letter, Eriugena and Eck-hart insisted that Genesis 1-3 can only be understood from a rigorously

philosophico-theological standpoint, one in which exegesis reveals thedepths of Christian metaphysics. In the interchange between positiveand negative language about God and the world as revealed in Gene-sis, as well as in their modes of relating the letter and the spirit ofthe text, these two great thinkers made unique contributions to thehistory of exegesis.

The bluegrass country of Petersburg, Kentucky, with its Crea-

tion Museum may be a fitting place to begin these remarks onthe conflict of interpretations about the opening chapters of Gene-sis. Founded by the evangelical Ken Ham and his organization“Answers in Genesis,” the Creation Museum website opens withthe words “Welcome and Prepare to Believe.” It continues withthe following : “The state-of-the-art 70,000 square foot museumbrings the pages of the Bible to life, casting its characters andanimals in dynamic form and placing them in familiar settings.Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden. Children play and

dinosaurs roam near Eden’s rivers. The serpent coils cunningly inthe Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” I apologize that theresources of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago do

Proceedings of the International Conference on Eriugenian Studies in honor of E. Jeau-neau, ed. by W. Otten, M. I. Allen, IPM, 68 (Turnhout, 2014), pp. 463-499.

© DOI 10.1484/M.IPM-EB.1.102071


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not allow serpents cunningly coiling in the lobby or lecture hall,but I take note of the Creation Museum to point to the fact thatthe meaning of creation, and especially how to interpret the Gene-sis account of the making of the world and the origins of huma-nity, has been, is, and will continue to be an important religiousissue—and not just an academic one.

For two thousand years the proper way of reading Genesis oncreation and human origins has been under discussion. The diversestrands of tradition cobbled together in Genesis 1-3 were presum-ably intended as a picture of how God formed the universe in

seven days, how humans were made as special creatures, and howthe mysterious serpent tempted the first couple to rebel againstGod and lose their original status. Such a matter-of-fact reading,of course, in which almost every detail of the narrative is takenat face value has never died out, although it became more diffi-cult with the rise of Greek philosophical attempts to give a ratio-nal account of the universe and humanity’s place in it, as well asthe forms of literary criticism that noted the inconsistencies andcontradictions (what can be called “exegetical irritants”) in the

Genesis story.1 The varying interpretations of the first chaptersof Genesis are one of the oldest examples of exegetical struggles.Between the hyper-literalist views of the Creation Museum spon-sors and their ancestors and the opposed position of those whoread Genesis as just another of the many myths regarding origins,we can identify a broad, if today threatened, stream of interpret-ers, both Jews and Christians, who over the centuries sought toconciliate philosophical cosmology and belief in Genesis into athird kind of reading to provide a foundation for faith in a Creator

God. This is a dangerous middle ground, where, as John ScottusEriugena once put it, expositors spread their exegetical sails andboldly set out to traverse not the “smooth and open waters” ofthe Bible, but the “region of the Syrtes” where dangerous currentsof unfamiliar teaching threaten shipwreck on every side.2 Among

1 The most prominent exegetical irritant in Genesis 1-3, commented on fromthe outset, was the dual creation of humanity (Gen. 1 :26 -27 and Gen. 2 :7).

2

I will refer to the Periphyseon according to the edition of ÉdouardJeauneau, Iohannis Scotti seu Eriugenae Periphyseon, 5 vols. (Turnhout : Bre-pols, 1996-2003. CCCM 161-65), citing first the book and in parentheses thecolumn number of PL 122 and the volume and page number of the Jeauneau


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the boldest of the mariners who sought to navigate the first threechapters of Genesis was Eriugena himself. A second was the four-teenth-century Dominican Meister Eckhart. I shall consider thesetwo master mariners both in light of the tradition of philosophicalreadings of Genesis and in terms of the inner dynamics of theirinterpretative models.3

The issue raised by the Bible Museum and its supporters, whoinsist on a historically-literal reading of the first three chapters ofGenesis, highlights the problem of the meaning of “literal inter-pretation.”4 We all know what physical letters are, but the “literal

sense” is a far more ambiguous and contested notion. This is espe-cially the case with sacred texts, writings which are accepted asin some way normative by particular faith communities. We cantake the literal sense as (1) the letters and words on the page andtheir significance in the context of forming meaningful phrasesand sentences. We can also expand the literal sense to include (2)the narrative structure and coherence of whole passages (the medi-eval series narrationum), and we can go even further and see theliteral sense as (3) the claim to the historical facticity of a narra-

tive, such as the account of the temptation of Adam and Eve inGenesis 3. The creators of the Bible Museum insist that all threelevels of the literal sense are necessary. Early Christian exegetesof Genesis held that the first two levels of literalness are foun-dational for interpretation and therefore they insisted that muchof their exegesis of Genesis was “literal,” even when it was of a

edition. This passage is Book 4 (743D-44A ; CCCM 164 :5). I will generally

use the translation of I. P. Sheldon-Williams and John J. O’Meara, Eriu-gena. Periphyseon (The Division of Nature) (Montréal-Washington : Bellarmin-Dumbarton Oaks, 1987), but have sometimes altered it for greater literalness(this passage is on 383).

3 A great deal has been written about the history of the interpretation ofGenesis, but there are few general surveys. Still useful for the older period,is Frank Eggleston Robbins, The Hexaemeral Literature. A Study of Greek and Latin Commentaries on Genesis (Chicago : University of Chicago Ph.D., 1912).There are also useful essays in In Principio. Interprétations des premiers versetsde la Genèse (Paris : Études Augustiniennes, 1973).

4

On the problematic of the literal sense in modern biblical hermeneutics,Hans W. Frei, “The ‘Literal Reading’ of the Biblical Narrative in ChristianTradition : Does It Stretch or Will It Break ?,” in Frank McConnell, ed., The Bible and the Narrative Tradition (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1986), 36-77.


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philosophical, rather than historical character, precisely becauseit was true to the littera in the first two senses. Christian readerssplit, however, on their attitudes towards the third level of liter-alness, historicity. Some claimed it too was normative for belief,while others argued that the Genesis narrative was partly historyand partly a symbolic way of setting out deeper truths about theworld and humanity that required a spiritual reading, called byvarious names, especially allegoria and theoria.

Determining the meaning of the three levels of literalness isincrementally difficult with regard to biblical texts. On the first

level, the interpreter needs to determine what the words on thepage mean, if necessary through philological investigation. On thesecond level, the hermeneut needs to explore how the structureand details of the story fit the interpretive claims being made.(Crudely put : What exegetical hooks serve to show that the inter-pretation matches the narrative ?) The knotty problem with thethird level of literality is deciding which passages are literal inthe historical sense of happening in time and which are not, eventhough they are presented as if they record temporal events.

Patristic and medieval distinctions between what is historicaland what is not may often seem arbitrary to us today, but closerinvestigation reveals that the practice is generally quite nuanced,because the philosophical exegete—the interpreter who looks forthe deepest truth in the Bible—needs to have not only a philoso-phy, but also a theory of exegesis, overt or implied, one that setsout philosophical and theological criteria for making judgmentsabout historical literalness. In other words, he or she needs tomake an argument that is open to confirmation or refutation.

Having a theory of interpretation, however, is not enough,because exegesis is above all a practical art or skill, not unlikeplaying a game in which one has to keep within the field of playand follow the rules of the game to score points. For patristicand medieval exegetes the field of play was fundamentally eccle-siological, that is, interpretations were meant for the church, sothat any reading that conflicted with church teaching or that didnot nourish the love of God and love of neighbor was outside thebounds of the playing field and therefore illegitimate.5 The rules

5 These two principles—not conflicting with the regula fidei and nourish-ing love of God and love of neighbor (the regula caritatis)—are best known


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of the game are too many to be surveyed here. One of the mostimportant, however, was the practice of intertextuality. Given theconviction of the ancient and medieval interpreters that the wholeBible is God’s word, any passage could be used to illuminate themeaning of any other passage. Christian conviction that the OldTestament reached its fulfillment in the New meant that the useof New Testament texts to illuminate the correct meaning of dif-ficult Old Testament passages was a formal feature of Christianexegesis. This is especially true of the use of Paul and John tohelp understand the Genesis account of creation and fall.

Background

The first-century Alexandrian Jew Philo was the ancestor ofChristian philosophical readings of Genesis. This Jewish philoso-pher insisted that it was not Greek philosophy that controlled theinterpretation of scripture, but rather that the philosophical truthswritten down by “Moses…who had attained the very summit ofphilosophy,” expressed the fullness of truth that the philosophers

had arrived at only partially. In his exegetical treatiseOn Creation

(De opificio mundi), Philo claims that Moses the Lawgiver avoidedthe extremes of setting out a naked law code or of expressing truelaws under the guise of mythic fictions by showing the harmonybetween his laws and the order of the world in his exordium to thePentateuch, that is, the Genesis creation account. Two fundamen-tal principles govern Philo’s reading of Genesis 1-3. The first is thedistinction between the active cause, that is, “the perfectly pureand unsullied Mind of the universe” (God), and the passive part,

“…set in motion and shaped and quickened by Mind” and changed“into the most perfect masterpiece, this world.”6 We might thinkof this distinction between the immaterial and material worlds asPlatonic, but Philo found it in Genesis in the difference betweenthe invisible creation described in Gen. 1 :1-5 and the material

from Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana 3.10, but they are found, explicitly

and implicitly, in many patristic and medieval exegetes.6 Philo, De opificio mundi II.8-9, in the translation of F. H. Colson andG. H. Whitaker, Philo I (Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 1971.Loeb Classical Library), 11.


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Christian readings of Genesis begin with Paul and proliferatein the second and third centuries C.E.14 Origen’s surviving Hom-ilies on Genesis are predominantly spiritual readings designed toencourage personal progress in virtue, what would come to becalled the moral, or tropological, sense. The surviving fragmentsof his Commentary on Genesis indicate it was more philosophical,as reflected in his exegetical treatise in Book 4 of On First Prin-ciples (De principiis), which has a sophisticated view of the differ-ence between historical narrative, fiction (something which couldhave happened), and impossible narratives recounting things that

could never have happened.15

Book 4 specifically singles out Gene-sis 1-3 as an example of fictive narrative : “…I believe that no onecan doubt that these things are put forth by scripture in figura-tive expression, under which certain hidden things are indicated.”Therefore, there is no need for the reader to think that everythingpresented as history in Genesis really happened ; rather, “…it iseasy for any one of us who wants to do it to collect from the holyscriptures things that were written as actually done (facta), butwhich are better and more reasonably judged not to have hap-

pened according to history.”16 This view seems to indicate that thefounding father of Christian exegesis went beyond Philo in think-ing that much of the narrative of the beginning of Genesis wasfigurative, not just the story of Paradise.

Despite Origen, the main trajectory in early Christian exegesis,both in East and West, was uncomfortable with advancing a com-pletely spiritual reading of Genesis in which everything set out inthe first three chapters, was literal only in senses (1) and (2) aboveand in which there was no real historia of temporal events. Hence,

many patristic Genesis commentaries were of a mixed character,

14 For a recent overview, Peter C. Bouteneff, Beginnings. Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives (Grand Rapids : Baker Academic,2008). For select texts, Andrew Louth, Ancient Christian Commentary onScripture. Old Testament I. Genesis 1-11 (Downers Grove : Intervarsity, 2001).

15 Origen, De principiis 4.2.9, as found in Origenes Werke. De Principiis, ed.Paul Koetschau (Leipzig : Hinrichs, 1913. GCS Origenes 5), 321-23.

16 Origen, De principiis 4.3.1 (GCS Origenes 5 :324.18-25) : …equidem nul-

lum arbitror dubitare quod figurali tropo haec ab scriptura proferantur, quoper haec quaedam mystica indicentur…. [P]erfacile est omni volenti congre-gare de scripturis sanctis quae scripta quidem tamquam facta, non tamensecundum historiam conpetenter et rationabiliter fieri potuisse credenda sunt.


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Gregory’s work is a tour-de-force of philosophical interpretationof the Genesis account of humanity’s creation, one emphasizing,like Philo, the pre-existence of things in the divine mind, an issuethat was not a focus of interest for Basil.21 The overtly philosoph-ical character of Gregory’s work, which was later translated intoLatin by Eriugena, appears in the prologue, where he says hiseffort will be “…to fit together, according to the explanation ofScripture and to that derived from reasoning, those statementsconcerning God which seem, by a kind of necessary sequence, tobe in opposition…”22 For Gregory even the historical facts of the

narrative of Genesis 1-3, such as the creation and order of theanimals, were intended by Moses “…to reveal a hidden doctrineand secretly deliver wisdom concerning the soul.”23 His account ofthe dual creation of humanity in Chapter 16.5-10 is based on thedifference between the a-temporal creation of man in the imageof God mentioned in Genesis 1 :26 and the historical existenceof humanity in its differentiation into male and female of Gene-sis 1 :27, another example of how a philosophical argument findsan exegetical hook in the narrative.24 Second only to Augustine,

Gregory was Eriugena’s major source for interpreting Genesis 1-3.

On the Making of Man, in Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds., A Select Libraryof the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Second Series. Volume V (Grand Rapids :Eerdmans, 1976), 387-427. On the sources and teaching of the work, JeanLaplace, “Introduction,” in Grégoire de Nysse. La creation de l’homme (Paris :Éditions du Cerf, 2002. 2nd ed.), 5-77.

21 Basil does mention the “condition older than the birth of the world and

proper to the supermundane powers, one beyond time,…” in Hom. 1.5 (SC 16 :104 ; trans., 9), but passes rapidly over it.22 Gregory of Nyssa, De hominis opificio, Prol. (PG 44 :128B). The transla-

tion of Eriugena was edited by M. Cappuyns, “Le ‘De imagine’ de Grégoirede Nysse traduit per Jean Scot Érigène,” Recherches de théologie ancienne etmédiévale 32 (1965) : 205-62, where this passage is found on 210). De hom.opif. 30.33 (PG 44 :256B) speaks of “Moses’s mystical account of man’s ori-gin” (mustikên tou Môuseôs anthrôpogonian epigenenêsthai). For an overviewof Gregory’s exegesis, Manlio Simonetti, “Exegesis,” in Lucas FranciscoMateo-Seco and Giulio Maspero, eds., The Brill Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa (Leiden : Brill, 2010), 331-38.

23 De hom. opif. 8.4 (PG 44 :144D).24 De hom. opif. 16.5 -10 (PG 44 :181A-85D). Time, as Gregory argues in

chap. 22.4-8 (PG 44 :205B-07B), is the measure created by God to allow for


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A similar interplay between the literal-philosophical readingsand allegorical- tropological readings is found in patristic Latinexegesis. Early in his career (ca. 375) Ambrose composed a spiri-tualizing homily On Paradise (De Paradiso) under the influence ofPhilo and Origen, a work he later seems to have disparaged.25 Thissermon, however, was a major resource for Eriugena. Ambrose’s Homilies on Genesis (Homiliae in Genesim) of ca. 387, like Basil,are concerned with refuting the errors of the Greek philosophers,especially about the eternity of matter or the universe, by holdingup Moses as the philosopher who gives the best account of cre-

ation.26

Nevertheless, the bishop of Milan often uses tropologicaland allegorical readings relating Genesis to the church.The creative tension between the philosophical-literal and the

tropological-allegorical readings is also found in Augustine, whostruggled throughout his life to find a balance between the twoapproaches. Augustine wrote five commentaries on Genesis 1-3.27 The early On Genesis against the Manichaeans ( De genesi contra

the development of humanity and the reintegration of fallen souls into thestate of universal restitution announced by Paul (e.g., 1 Cor. 15 :51-52).

25 Ambrose’s two works on the beginning of Genesis, the De Paradiso andthe Exameron, were edited by Karl Schenkl in Sancti Ambrosii Opera. Pars Prima. Fasciculus I (Vienna : Tempsky, 1897, CSEL 32.1), with the Exameron on 3-261, and the De Paradiso on 267-336. There are translations in JohnJ. Savage, Saint Ambrose. Hexameron, Paradise, and Cain and Abel (Washing-ton, DC : Catholic University, 1961). The background to Ambrose’s commenton the opening of Genesis was studied by Jean Pépin, Théologie cosmique etthéologie chrétienne (Ambroise, Exam. 1.1.1-4) (Paris : Presses Universitaires deFrance, 1964). The reading of the Fall in De Paradiso, cap. 2, is deeply Phi-

lonian, with Philo actually mentioned in cap. 4. Ambrose’s debt to Origen isstudied by Hervé Savon, “Ambroise lecteur d’Origène,” in Luigi F. Pizzolatoand Marco Rizzi, eds., Nec Timeo Mori. Atti del Congresso internazionale distudi ambrosiani nel XVI centenario della morte di sant’Ambrogio (Milan : Vitae Pensiero, 1998), 221-34.

26 Ambrose’s literalist intentions can be seen, for example, In Hexaemeron,Hom. 3, cap. 4 (17), in discussing the “heaven of heavens” and the “firma-ment” as “things of the world.”

27 For an overview of Augustine on Genesis, Gilles Pelland, Cinq étudesd’Augustin sur le début de la Genèse (Paris-Montréal : Desclée-Bellarmin,

1972). See also Marie-Anne Vannier, “Creatio”, “Conversio”, “Formatio” chezS. Augustin (Fribourg : Éditions Universitaires Fribourg Suisse, 1997). RolandJ. Teske, “Genesis Accounts of Creation,” in Allan D. Fitzgerald, ed., Augus-tine through the Ages. An Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids : Eerdmans, 1999), 379-


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Manichaeos, ca. 388-89) is mostly literal in the first book and fig-urative in the second, such as in its view (like Gregory of Nyssa)that sexual differentiation was the result of the fall. About 393Augustine tried to write a literal commentary, but failed. Thetreatment of Genesis in Books 11-13 of the Confessions (ca. 400),however, marked a breakthrough. Here the bishop begins with adoctrinal consideration of the meaning of creation (Bk. 11) as anintroduction to a literal-philosophical reading of Genesis 1 :1 inBook 12, followed by an anagogical reading of Genesis 1 :1-3 inBook 13.1-14, concluding with a treatment of Genesis 1 :3-2 :2 as a

prophetic figura of the role of the church in salvation in 13.15-38.This remarkable interpretation helped the bishop to undertake hisgreat Literal Commentary on Genesis (De genesi ad litteram), com-posed between 401 and 415, which can be considered the supremeexample of patristic literal-philosophical readings of the firstthree chapters.28 In it Augustine sets out a careful discriminationbetween the philosophically-literal and the figurative readings.29 This long commentary formed the basis for the reading of theGenesis story in Books 11-14 of the bishop’s City of God (De civitate

Dei) written about 417-18.A modern reader of Augustine’s Literal Commentary might ask,

“What is literal about a treatment that finds the Trinity, theideal world, the nature of time, the inner constituents of beings,and so much more in the narrative of Genesis 1-3 ?” The answeris that Augustine’s literal sense is like Philo’s, concentrating onthe philosophical truth revealed in the words of the narrative.This does not mean that Augustine did not accept the historic-ity of the narrative, even with regard to the account of Paradise.

In City of God 13.21 he says : “Some people refer to intelligiblematters the whole of the Paradise account in which the first peo-

81, argues that the late treatise (ca. 419-21) Contra adversarium legis et phi-losophorum constitutes a sixth commentary on Genesis.

28 The De genesi ad litteram appears in PL 34 :245-486, but the best mod-ern edition is that of Joseph Zycha, Aurelii Augustini Opera. De Genesi adlitteram (Vienna : Tempsky, 1894 ; CSEL 28.1), 1-435. There is a translationwith extensive notes and bibliography in John Hammond Taylor, St. Augus-

tine. The Literal Meaning of Genesis, 2 vols. (New York : Newman Press, 1982). 29 For example, Augustine accepts both a literal and a figurative readingof Genesis 1-3, as he notes in De gen. ad litt. 1.1.1. and 1.17.24. He also laysdown principles for a competent literal reading in 1.19-21.


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ple, the parents of the human race, are said to have existed bythe truth of the holy scripture.” He, however, does not take thispath.30 Rather, he considers the account as both historical and as“prophetic indications foreshadowing things to come” ( propheticaindicia praecedentia futurorum). After providing a number of spiri-tual readings, Augustine concludes his discussion with the axiom :“These interpretations and whatever others can be convenientlyexpressed about understanding Paradise in a spiritual way maybe put forth without anyone prohibiting them, as long as the mostfirm truth of their history as confirmed by the story of the events

done is believed.”31

Augustine, therefore, insisted on the historicalreality of Paradise and the story of the Fall.Augustine’s insistence on both literal-historical and figurative

readings of Genesis 1-3 remained basic in the early Middle Ages.32 Many of the details of his readings were also formative for medie-val exegetes, but there was a tendency towards a growing histori-cal literalism regarding Genesis 1-3, as can be seen in the case ofBede’s popular In principium Genesis (On the Beginning of Genesis) written about 720.33 Bede breaks with Augustine, and indeed, the

tradition going back to Philo, by taking the six days of Genesis1 as real periods of twenty-four hours, as well as, for example,interpreting the heaven of Genesis 1 :1 ( In principio creavit Deuscaelum et terram) as a place, not the heaven we see, but the higherheaven where the angels dwell.34 Such a literalizing tendency is

30 De civitate dei 13.21, in Sancti Aurelii Augustini Episcopi De Civitate Dei,

ed. B. Dombart, 2 vols. (Leipzig : Teubner, 1888), 1 :585.31 De civitate dei 13.21 (ed., 1 :586) : Haec et si qua alia commodius dicipossunt de intelligendo spiritaliter paradiso nemine prohibente dicantur, dumtamen et illius historiae veritas fidelissima rerum gestarum narratione com-mendata credatur. See also De gen. ad litt. 8.1.1.

32 On Latin exegesis after Augustine, Thomas O’Loughlin, Teachers andCode-Breakers. The Latin Genesis Tradition, 430-800 (Turnhout : Brepols, 1999).

33 For an edition, Bedae Venerabilis Opera. Pars II. Opera Exegetica 1, ed.C. W. Jones (Turnholt : Brepols, 1967. CCSL 118A). There is a translationand study in On Genesis. Bede, by Calvin B. Kendall (Liverpool : Liverpool

University Press, 2008).34 On heaven as the place of the angels, In Gen. 1.2ab (CCSL 118A : 4-5 ;trans., 69-70) ; on day as a twenty-four hour period, In Genesim 1.5 (CCSL118A : 9-10 ; trans., 75). At the beginning of his commentary, Bede warns


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also evident in many of the Carolingian commentators,35 except,of course, for Eriugena. The Irishman’s navigation of the treach-erous waters of Genesis 1-3 was, therefore, swimming against thecurrents of his time.

Eriugena on Genesis 1-336

What is remarkable about Eriugena’s reading of the early chap-ters of Genesis in Periphyseon is not only its innovative interpre-tation of Creation, Paradise, and the Fall, but also its rootingin a consistent theory of exegesis, though one not expressed in a

systematic handbook of interpretation, as we find in Origen andAugustine.37 Eriugena, however, was not just an original theore-tician. His lengthy exposition of the Genesis text reveals him tobe a skillful player of the exegetical game. The Irishman remarkson the necessity for creativity in the work of spiritual exegesisin his Commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy (Expositiones in Ierar-chiam Coelestem) of Dionysius. “And thus theology,” he says, “likea kind of poetry conforms holy scripture to our mind’s resolve by

made up representations (fictis imaginationibus

) and leads us fromexternal bodily senses like an imperfect childhood into the perfectknowledge of intelligible things as into the mature age of the inte-

against abandoning the literal sense by too quickly seeking the allegorical ( InGen. 1.1 [CCSL 118A : 3-4]).

35 There are at least seven other ninth-century commentaries on Gene-sis : (1) Alcuin, Interrogationes et responsiones in Genesim (PL 100 :515-66) ; (2)Alcuin (Ps.-Augustine), De Trinitate et de Genesi quaestiones 23 (PL 42 :1171-76) ; (3) Angelome of Luxeuil, Commentarius in Genesim (PL 115 :102-244) ;

(4) Claude of Turin (Ps.-Eucherius), Commentarius in Genesim (PL 50 :893-1048) ; (5) Ps.-Bede, Expositio in primum librum Mosis (PL 91 :189-286) ; (6)Ps.-Bede, De sex dierum creatione (PL 93 :207-34) ; (6) Remigius of Auxerre( ?), Commentarius in Genesim (PL 131 :51-134) ; and (7) Rabanus Maurus,Commentarius in Genesim (PL 107 :439-670).

36 Eriugena’s treatment of Genesis 1-3 has often been investigated ; seeespecially René Roques, “Genèse I, 1-3 chez Jean Scot Erigène,” in In Prin-cipio, 173-212 ; reprinted in Roques, Libres sentiers vers l’érigénisme (Rome :Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1975), 131-94.

37 On Eriugena as a biblical exegete, see the essays in Gerd van Riel, Car-

los Steel, and James McEvoy, eds., Iohannes Scottus Eriugena. The Bible and Hermeneutics (Leuven : University Press, 1996). In what follows I will makeuse of some themes developed in my essay in this volume, “The Originalityof Eriugena’s Spiritual Exegesis” (55-80).


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rior person.”38 The need for creativity in the practice of exegesisis rooted in the surplus, superabundance, we might even say satu-ration of meaning in the Bible as the word of God. Augustine hadspoken of scripture’s mira profunditas ; Eriugena uses the imageof the peacock’s tail. Taking note of the different interpretationsof Genesis 1 :20 in Periphyseon 4, he says : “There are many ways,indeed an infinite number, of interpreting the scriptures, just as inone and the same feather of a peacock, and even in a single smallportion of the feather, we see a marvelously beautiful variety ofinnumerable colors.”39 The interpreter’s art therefore demands

constant attention and frequent improvisation ; those who stick toone kind of move or play are bound to stumble badly. At the endof Book 5, for example, he says : “Error and extreme difficultyin interpretation are experienced by those who adopt one and thesame species of exposition without allowing for transition to var-ious figurations (absque ullo transitu in diuersas figurationes). Forthe text of holy scripture is all interrelated and is a tissue of indi-rect and oblique allusions worthy of Daedalus.”40

Among the puzzles of Eriugena’s lengthy navigation of Gene-

sis is why it even exists, that is, why the philosophical and ana-lytical account of the four species of the genus natura that wasapparently Eriugena’s original intention in setting out to write the Periphyseon morphed into the long reading of Genesis in Books 2

38 Iohannis Scoti Eriugenae. Expositiones in Ierarchiam Coelestem II, 1, CCCM31 : 24.146-51 : …ita theologia, ueluti quaedam poetria, sanctam scripturaefictis imaginationibus ad consultum nostri animi et reductionem a corpora-libus sensibus exterioribus, ueluti ex quadam imperfecta pueritia, in rerum

intelligibilium perfectam cognitionem, tamquam in quamdam interiorishominis grandeuitatem conformat. Peter Dronke, “’Theologia velut quaedampoetria’ : quelques observations sur la function des images poétiques chezJean Scot,” in Jean Scot Érigène et l’histoire de la philosophie (Paris : CNRS,1975), 243-52, considers this passage primarily in relation to John’s poeticimagination.

39 Periphyseon 4.749C (CCCM 164 :13). The theme of the infinite significa-tions of scripture is a constant in Eriugena ; e.g., 560A, 690C, etc. This doesnot conflict with Eriugena’s claim that although the formulations of scriptureare many, the understanding they lead to is one and uniform insofar as it

brings us to beatitude : Quamuis enim formationes diuine scripture varie sintac multiformes sepissime confuse, intellectus tamen earum simplex est et uni-formis…. ( In Coelestem Ierarchiam 4.1 [CCCM 31 : 66]).

40 Periphyseon 5.1010B (CCCM 165 :210).


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to “manufacture, or contrive, a consensus” (consensum machinari,804CD) among his various conflicting authorities.44 Acutely awareof the gap between the more literal interpreters such as Basil,Epiphanius, and even at times Augustine, on the one hand, andthe spiritualizing Greeks and Ambrose in his De Paradiso on theother, Eriugena adopted a policy of exegetical laissez-faire, threetimes citing Romans 14 :5 in his defense : unusquisque in suo sensuabundet (“Let each one abound in his own understanding”).45 Thus,he frequently allows a literal understanding advanced by one orthe other of the Fathers as possible, but prefers a spiritual reading

as more fitting and probable.46

Only rarely does he become moreassertive, as at the beginning of Book 5 when he advises carnalreaders of the Paradise account “…to turn at once to the spiritualmeaning which is taught by the truth, for that is the one and onlyway of penetrating the approaches to the mystical writings.”47

Eriugena’s introduction of this long and winding commentaryon Genesis into his theoretical exposition of the four species ofnatura starts rather abruptly. Book 2 begins where Book 1 left off,recalling the four species of natura (523D-29C). Then the Irishman

introduces the fivefold division of reality from Maximus the Con-fessor for the first time (529C-45B), discussing not only the returnto God, but also a number of issues about the Fall and sexual dif-ferentiation. Returning to the question of the primordial causes,Nutritor suddenly announces, “I consider that we should take the

44 On consensum machinari, see Giulio d’Onofrio, “The Concordia of Augus-tine and Dionysius : Toward a Hermeneutic of the Disagreement of Patristic

Sources in John the Scot’s Periphyseon,” in Willemien Otten and BernardMcGinn, eds., Eriugena East and West (Notre Dame : University of NotreDame, 1994), 115-40.

45 Rom. 14 :5 is cited three times in defense of exegetical liberty : 814A,816D, and 1022C. See also 860A : Sed eligat quis quod sequatur. At the outsetof the hexaemeral commentary Eriugena notes that he does not want to judgebetween conflicting patristic authorities (548D-49A ; CCCM 162 :32).

46 Many texts, especially in Book 4, display Eriugena’s willingness toallow a l iteral reading even when the spiritual is judged superior : for exam-ple, 775B, 781CD, 813D-14A, 818A, 829AB, 833A, 841BC, 844A, 856C-57A,

and 859B-60C.47 Periphyseon 5 (862A ; CCCM 165 :4) : …et ad spirituales intellectus, quosueritas edocet, promptus accedat, qua una et sola uia mysticarum litterarumpenetrantur adyta (see also 863A).


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beginning of our reasoning from the divine oracles [i.e., the scrip-tures],” and the faithful Alumnus responds, “Nothing would bemore proper. For it is necessary that every inquiry of truth shouldtake its beginning from them.”48 At least two things seem to be atwork here. First, Eriugena’s abiding confidence that true philoso-phy and true religion are at heart one and the same ;49 and second,his sense that a universal account embracing cosmology/physics,anthropology, and theology could not be complete and convincingunless it was based on scripture, especially Genesis 1-3 read in thelight of the entire Bible. In other words, exegesis is metaphysics

and metaphysics must be biblically based.This conviction is founded on the essential principles of Eriuge-na’s interpretive theory, both the general principles found through-out his works, as well as those specifically invoked during his nav-igation of Genesis. The conformity between natura and scriptura isevident in the discussion of the isomorphism of the four elementsof the created world and the four senses of scripture in Chapter 14of the Homily on John (Omilia in Iohannem), in which historia islike earth in the middle, ethica is the surrounding waters, physica

is the air, and theologia is “the aether and fiery heat of the empy-reum of heaven.”50 This is Eriugena’s version of the ancient theme,mediated to him by Maximus the Confessor, of the two books thatreveal God—the book of nature and the book of scripture. In his Homily on John he follows tradition in emphasizing that the needfor the book of scripture is a consequence of the Fall that pre-vented humanity from properly reading the book of nature,51 butit is interesting that in other appeals to the reciprocity of natureand scripture this note falls away as he stresses natura and scrip-

tura as equal manifestations of the incarnate Christ—his two feet,

48 Periphyseon 2 (545B ; CCCM 162 :27). Eriugena had already made thesame point in Periphyseon 1 (509A ; CCCM 161 :92) : Sanctae siquidem scriptu-rae in omnibus sequenda est auctoritas…

49 The relation of recta ratio and auctoritas is one of the constant themes of Periphyseon, and, indeed, of all Eriugena’s writings. For some passages, see511BC, 513BC, 723A-24B, 749C, 772B, 781CD, 846A, 890B, 924A, etc.

50 Homila in Iohannem 14, in Jean Scot. Homélie sur le Prologue de Jean, ed.Édouard Jeauneau (Paris : Cerf, 1969 ; SC 151), 270-72.

51 Homilia in Iohannem 11 (SC 151, 254-56).


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his double footwear, his two vestments, as one text puts it.52 Thesame message is expressed towards the end of the Periphyseon where he speaks of “…the man Christ filled with the sevenfoldgrace of the Holy Spirit and thickened into flesh by the full-bod-iedness of the letter [of scripture] and of visible nature” (…homoChristus septena sancti spiritus gratia plenus, uel certe pinguedinelitterae uisibilisque naturae incrassatus). He goes on : “For in thesetwo, in the letter and the visible nature, the corporeality of Christis manifest, since it is in them and through them that he is per-ceived, insofar as he is perceived.”53 The reditus, or return, that is,

the realization of human destiny, is achieved by recta ratio investi-gating both the created universe and the scriptures. In this sense,exegesis does not so much teach about the return, as effect it.54 Thepractice of exegesis, therefore, is philosophical in the etymologicalsense of the word—a true love of wisdom. It is what makes pos-sible the transitus from the world of the third species of natura tothe fourth, the unknown God.

Eriugena was no enemy of the literal sense, that is, “the letter,[or] what the history says was done.”55 The letter is not some

kind of obstacle to be overcome. Like all Christian exegetes, heholds that much of what the Bible says is historical fact, thoughthe events described also have deeper spiritual meanings.56 In hislong discussion of the last things in Periphyseon 5, the Irishmansays that the biblical history does not lie and he blames inter-preters who do violence to the littera.57 In commenting on the sec-

52 On natura and scriptura as calceamentum, habitus, and pedes, see the Com-

mentarius in Evangelium Iohannis 1.29, in Jean Scot. Commentaire sur l’évangilede Jean, ed. Édouard Jeauneau (Paris : Cerf, 1972. SC 180), 154-56 ; see also Exposit. in Ier. Coel. 1 (CCCM 31, 15). On this theme, Willemien Otten, “TheParallelism of Nature and Scripture : Reflections on Eriugena’s IncarnationalExegesis,” in Iohannes Scottus Eriugena. The Bible and Hermeneutics, 81-102.

53 Periphyseon 5 (1005B ; CCCM 165 :203) : His enim duobus, littera uideli-cet et uisibili creatura, ueluti quaedam corpulentia Christi apparet, quoniamin eis et per eas intelligitur, quantum intelligi potest.

54 See Willemien Otten, “The Dialectic of the Return in Eriugena’s Peri- physeon,” Harvard Theological Review 84 (1991) : 399-421, especially 420.

55 Comm. in Io. 3.5 (SC 180, 228) : …littera est quod sancta narrat historia.56 Periphyseon 4 (818AC ; CCCM 164 :109)57 On scripture not lying (935D ; CCCM 165 :106), and for attacks on those

who do violence to the letter regarding the Judgment (996B ; CCCM 165 :189).


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ond day of creation (Gen. 1 :6-8) in Periphyseon 3 (693C-98C) heannounces that the Fathers have said enough about the allegor-ical-tropological sense of this day, so that “…we are attempting,under God’s guidance, only to say a few things about the cre-ation of things made according to the historical sense” (secundumhistoriam pauca disserere).58 Eriugena’s use of the literal sense indealing with the hexaemeral account, however, like that of Philoand his Christian successors, is philosophically literal. The sixdays are not twenty-four hour periods, but are appropriate met-aphors for revealing the order of the created cosmos. Hence, the

littera and physica are closely allied : two sides of the same coin.Defending his account of the first three days as non-allegorical alittle later in Book 3, he appeals to the fourfold division of wis-dom (practical, physical, theological, and logical), arguing, “Inall these instances we are not dealing with allegory but only thebare physical consideration, adapting the names of sensible thingsto signify invisible things in accordance with a very well-estab-lished usage of divine scripture.”59

Eriugena also believed that some parts of Genesis 1-3 could notbe taken literally as teaching philosophical cosmology, but had tobe read theologically-allegorically as revealing truths about Godand God’s image, homo. Two other essential principles of his exe-getical theory are helpful for determining the shift from the levelof historia-physica to allegoria-theologia. The first is the priority ofnegation in speaking about God. For Eriugena the fundamentalteaching of recta ratio is that we cannot know God as God reallyis. “Reason,” says Eriugena quoting Dionysius, “is wholly con-

cerned with suggesting and proving by the most accurate inves-tigations into the truth that nothing can be properly said aboutGod,… who is better known by not knowing and of whom igno-

58 Periphyseon 3 (693C ; CCCM 163 :107).59 Periphyseon 3 (705D-707B ; CCCM 163 :125-27, concluding) : In his ergo

omnibus nulla allegoria, sed nuda solummodo physica consideratio tracta-

tus, mutatis sensibilium nominibus ad significanda inuisibilia frequentissimodiuinae scripturae usu. In beginning his comment on Gen. 1 :24, Eriugenasays that this difficult text will demand an alta physica theoria (763C ; CCCM164 :32).


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rance is the proper knowledge.”60 What this means in practice isthat many aspects of the Bible, especially those speaking aboutGod, that are presented literally as affirmative descriptions andhistoria must yield to the priority of negative theology. This radi-cal claim about biblical accounts is set out in Periphyseon 1, whereEriugena also pays tribute to the supreme authority of the sacredtext : “The authority of holy scripture must be in all things fol-lowed because the truth dwells there as in a retreat of its own…”But then he continues, “…it is not to be believed as a book thatalways uses verbs and nouns in their proper sense when it teaches

about the divine nature, but it employs certain likenesses andtransfers in various ways the meanings of the verbs and nouns outof condescension for our weakness and to encourage by uncompli-cated teaching our senses which are still untrained and childish.”61

The application of the apophatic imperative to biblical narra-tives and their historicity is illustrated by the distinction Eriu-gena makes between mysterium or sacramentum on the one hand,and symbolum on the other. A mystery (allegoria et facti et dicti) isan event that actually did happen in historical time, but that has

a further spiritual significance, such as Moses’s construction of thetabernacle, traditionally interpreted as applying to the church orthe soul. A symbolum is an allegoria dicti et non facti, that is, a nar-

60 Periphyseon 1 (510B ; CCCM 161 :94) : Ratio uero in hoc uniuersaliterstudet ut suadeat certisque ueritatis inuestigationibus approbet nil de deoproprie posse dici, quoniam superat omnem intellectum omnesque sensibilesintelligibilesque significationes, ‘qui melius nesciendo scitur’, ‘cuius ignoran-tia uera est sapientia’…. The two quotations are from the Dionysian Epistula

1 (PG 3 :1065AB). The priority of not-knowing is a constant theme in Peri- physeon ; e.g., 597D-98B, 757D-58A, 771BD, 951AC, 1010D, etc.

61 Periphyseon 1 (509A ; CCCM 161 :92-93) : Sanctae siquidem scripturae inomnibus sequenda est auctoritas, quoniam in ea ueluti quibusdam suis secre-tis sedibus ueritas possidet. Non tamen ita credendum est ut ipsa semperpropriis uerborum seu nominum signis fruatur diuinam nobis naturam insin-uans, sed quibusdam similitudinibus uariisque translatorum uerborum seunominum modis utitur infirmitati nostrae condescendens nostrosque adhucrudes infantilesque sensus simplici doctrina erigens. Eriugena does not citescripture here, but his frequent appeal to biblical texts stressing the unknow-

ability of God demonstrates that he was convinced both reason and scrip-ture taught the same thing. Among his prooftexts were Phil. 4 :7 ( pax deiquae superat omnem sensum), used 9x ; Rom. 11 :34 and 1 Cor. 2 :16 (quid enimcognoscit sensum Domini), 6x ; and Jn. 1 :18 ( Deum nemo vidit unquam), 2x.


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rative that never actually happened, but that reveals a spiritualtruth, for example, the text from Psalm 113 :4 that speaks of “Themountains rejoicing like rams,” and the parables of Jesus.62 Forthe Irishman symbols are to be preferred to mysteries, becauseeverything that happens by way of mystery eventually will besubsumed into the eternal truths that are more clearly set forth inthe symbols. This distinction will have major relevance for Eriu-gena’s reading of Genesis 2-3.

It is not possible here to follow the details of Eriugena’s com-plete reading of Genesis, but a few remarks about the structure of

his account and some of its central features will help highlight hisplace in the history of hexaemeral exegesis.63 The Irishman’s nav-igation of Genesis 1-3 is anything but straightforward, nor shouldwe expect it to be. After Nutritor and Alumnus agree to launch outinto the dangerous sea of Genesis they engage in a brief discussionof heaven and earth as the primordial causes (545B-55A),64 beforeturning to a detailed account of Trinitarian theology (555A-620A)inspired by the fact that Genesis 1 :1-2 was traditionally read asrevealing creation to be the work of the three persons, because the

Father (deus) creates in the Son (in principio) and the Holy Spiritappears in the passage spiritus dei ferebatur super aquas (Gen. 1 :2a).In Book 3, Eriugena returns to Genesis, not to the narrative itself,but to a theological prolegomena relating to the notion of creation,specifically dealing with the primordial causes, the notion of par-ticipation, and the status of nihil (619A-90B). The second part ofBook 3 takes up the actual work of exegeting the first five days(690C-742B), an interpretation Eriugena specifically character-izes as physica, that is, cosmological, as noted above. Tellingly,

62 The most important discussion is from the Comm. in Ev. Ioh. 6.5 (SC 180,352-56) ; see Jean Pépin, “ Mysteria et Symbola dans le commentaire de JeanScot sur l’evangile de Saint Jean,” in John J. O’Meara and Ludwig Bieler,eds., The Mind of Eriugena (Dublin : Irish University Press, 1973), 16-30 ; andJeauneau, “Appendice III. Allegoria Mysterium. Sacramentum. Symbolum,”in Jean Scot. Commentaire, SC 180, 397-402.

63 The commentary on Genesis 1-3, although filled with digressions in atypically Eriugenean way, stretches from Bk. 2 (545B) to Bk. 5 (865C), tak-

ing up 320 columns of the 581 in PL 122.64 Coelum et terra are discussed not only in 545C-55A, but again at 690C-93B. There is also a treatment of eschatological texts on coelum et terra in989BD.


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the Irishman distinguishes his literal-physical reading of the fivedays from the literal-historical reading of the passage found in thefourth of Basil’s Homilies on Genesis, excusing this as the mode ofspeaking Basil adopted for his audience, whereas the bishop knewin reality that God creates all things simultaneously and not day-by-day.65

Book 4 begins with a recapitulation of the first three books asdealing with the first three species of natura stating that, “Now wecome to the Fourth Book which starts with the work of the sixthprophetic meditation of the creation of the universe [i.e., the sixth

day], goes on to consider the return of all things into that naturewhich neither creates nor is created, and so brings our work toits conclusion.”66 Beginning from the account of man being madein genere animali (Gen. 1 :24a),67 Eriugena wends his way throughthe meaning of humanity’s creation from the viewpoint of physica before he finally ascends to the level of theologia in his long read-ing of Genesis 1 :26 (786A-814A). Having finally arrived at theallegorical-theological level, the Irishman spends the remainder ofBook 4 (814A-860C) on a theological reading of Genesis 2-3, the

account of Paradise and the Fall.68 Paradoxically, the account ofthe Fall is really the story of our present existence, and Paradiseis a symbolum of the universal restitution of man and of all createdthings in man.69 Book 5 then begins by completing the exegesis of

65 Periphyseon 3 (707B-09B ; CCCM 163 :127-29). There is a similar passageexcusing the accommodated literalism of the Fathers in Periphyseon 5 (986B-87A ; CCCM 165 :176-77).

66 Periphyseon 4 (743C ; CCCM 164 :4) : Quartus hic ab operibus sextae

propheticae contemplationis de conditione uniuersitatis inchoans, reditumomnium in eam naturam quae nec creat nec creatur considerans finem con-stituet.

67 On this passage, Jean Pépin, “Humans and Animals : Aspects of ScripturalReference in Eriugena’s Anthropology,” in Eriugena East and West, 179-206.

68 Periphyseon 4 (829B-30A ; CCCM 164 :125) provides a handy summaryof the eight main spiritual readings of Gen. 2 :1-3 :13 : (1) Paradise is humannature made in God’s image ; (2) the fountain is Christ ; (3) the four rivers arethe cardinal virtues ; (4) the tree of life, or “All Tree,” is the Incarnate Word ;(5) the tree of mixed knowledge is the desire of the carnal senses ; (6) the man

is the mind presiding over human nature ; (7) the woman is sense knowledge ;and (8) the serpent is forbidden pleasure.69 The structure of the remainder of Book 4 is as follows : (a) What is Par-

adise ? (Gen. 2 :5-21 in 814A-33B) ; (b) Paradise and the Fall (Gen. 2 :22-3 :11


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Genesis 2-3 with an interpretation of Adam and Eve being castout of Paradise (859D-65C), and continues with a long analysis ofthe reditus in which elements of the Paradise account, especiallyChrist as the tree of life, come back from time-to-time.70 In thisbook Eriugena also uses a number of New Testament parables assymbola of the final state of man and the universe.71

The details of Eriugena’s bold exegesis of the Hexaemeron havebeen the subject of many investigations.72 Here I only want to askwhat enabled Eriugena to interpret protology as eschatology, thatis, to insist that what is presented as an account of the begin-

ning in Genesis 2-3 is really a revelation of the end.73

Althoughexegetes beginning with Philo had insisted that Genesis 2 and 3cannot be interpreted as history, Eriugena is remarkable in theway he reduces the story of Paradise to a symbolum of eternaltruths that from our perspective are still to come.74 The funda-mental ground for this approach rests in the nature of the Bible asa book that must express the eternal, a-temporal, reality of God

in 833C-45A) ; and (c) What to make of the accusations, punishments, andcurses in Gen. 3 (Gen. 3 :12-19 in 845A-60C).

70 On Christ as the tree of life in Book 5, see 919AC, 979AC, 981A, 982A,and 1015AB.

71 The New Testament passages used begin with the story of the ten lepersof Lk. 17 :12-19 (874AB ; symbolum or mysterium ?) ; and proceeds with theparables of the prodigal son of Lk. 15 :11-32 (1004D-05C), the lost drachmaof Lk. 15 :8-9 (1005D), the hundred sheep of Lk. 15 :3-6 (1006A-08B), andfinally the ten virgins of Mt. 25 :1-13 (1011A-18D). On the last, see Paul

A. Dietrich and Donald F. Duclow, “Virgins in Paradise : Symbolism andExegesis in ‘ Periphyseon V’,” in G.-H. Allard, ed., Jean Scot Écrivain (Mon-tréal-Paris : Bellarmin-Vrin, 1986), 29 -49.

72 See, for example, the essay in this volume by Donald F. Duclow, “TheSleep of Adam, the Making of Eve : Sin and Creation in Eriugena.”

73 The whole interpretation of Genesis 2-3 is based on this approach, whichEriugena at times makes explicit ; e.g., Periphyseon 4 (809CD ; CCCM 164 :97) :Nec hoc mirum, cum saepissime diuina auctoritas futura quasi iam peracta pro-nuntiet. See also 782CD.

74 After citing a long passage from chapter 20 of Gregory of Nyssa’s De

imagine, Eriugena summarizes Gregory’s and his own view : Quisquis diligen-ter praefati theologi uerba perspexerit, nil aliud, ut opinor, in eis reperiet sua-deri quam humanam naturam ad imaginem dei factam paradisi uocabulo, fig-uratae locutionis modo, a diuina scriptura significari (822A ; CCCM 164 :112).


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in the categories of space and time.75 As René Roques once put it,what distinguishes Eriugena’s interpretation of Genesis 1 :1-3 (and,I believe, the rest of his exposition of the first three chapters) isits “eternist perspective.”76 From this viewpoint, verbs expressingparticular times must become fluid, just as nouns ascribing posi-tive attributes to God must be reversed, or upended. In the case ofnouns and adjectives, Eriugena provides examples in Periphyseon 1, where he shows how we begin with calling God good, only torealize that God is better spoken of as not-good from the perspec-tive our limited understanding. Therefore, we eventually realize

the supremacy of eminent terms, such as hyperagathos (over-good),as the most adequate form of predication—words that are positivein form, but negative in content.

A similar procedure obtains with regard to verbs, what the Irish-man calls a mystica mutatio (810BC), that is, the transmutation ofverbs engineered by recta ratio functioning as the negative horizonof God-talk. Words describing past, present, and future actionsfound in the Bible must always come under scrutiny by the skilledexegete. As Eriugena advises towards the end of Book 4 :

You ought to study thoroughly ( pulchre) the text of the divinewords, which, because of our sluggishness and the carnal sensesthat in the corruption of original sin subject us to space and time,have set forth in a wonderful order very full of mystical under-standings matters that were done at one and the same time with-out temporal intervals as if they happened in space and time(ueluti locis temporibusque peracta).77

This strategy of verbal transitus, which also involves the trans-mutation of the exegete to a higher state, as already set out in

75 On time and eternity in Eriugena, see especially Periphyseon 4 (779D-81D, 807D-08B, and 848B).

76 Roques, “Genèse 1, 1-3 chez Jean Scot Érigène,“ 210 : “…une impor-tante divergence entre Jean-Scot et la plupart de ses devanciers, en ce sensqu’il propose une interpretation essentiellement ‘éterniste’ de Genèse I, 1-3 (etmeme de Genèse I, 1-5, et de l’ensemble du récit des six jours).”

77 Periphyseon 4 (848AB ; CCCM 164 :151) : Ubi pulchre diuinorum uerbo-rum textum animaduertere debemus. Ea siquidem, quae simul facta sunt

absque temporalium morulorum interstitiis, propter nostrum tarditatem car-nalesque sensus, quibus originali peccato corrupti locis temporibusque suc-cumbimus, ordine quodam mirabili, mysticorum sensuum plenissimo, uelutilocis temporibusque peracta contexuit.


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Book 1,78 is put into practice in detail in the readings of Books3-5, especially in Book 4. To cite just a few examples, Eriugenaargues that although the creation of man is mentioned last, hewas actually created first and all other creatures were made inhomo (781D-85C). God’s “prognostic operation” ( prognostica opera-tio, 798C) understood the whole of human nature in its perfectionat once and, foreseeing sin, formed our nature with a plan of pro-pagation suited to this state (here following Gregory of Nyssa).Adam did not spend any past time in Paradise ; rather, “…veryoften the divine authority speaks of the future as though it had

already happened” (809D). Therefore, what scripture has to sayabout the things that took place in Paradise, “…although they areintroduced by anticipation and as having taken place in Paradise,are more reasonably understood to have occurred outside Paradiseand after sin…” (833C). Eriugena also finds exegetical hooks forthe switch in times, noting that in the second creation accountMoses uses the perfect tense (factus est homo in animam viventem,Gen. 2 :7c), whereas in what is really the first creation account heuses the pluperfect ( plantaverat autem Dominus Deus paradisum,

Gen. 2 :8a), thus indicating the priority in dignity, not in time,of human nature planted in eternal and paradisical bliss (834BC).Finally, at the beginning of Book 5, in his interpretation of God’sspeech about casting Adam out of Paradise (Gen. 3 :22) “…lest heperchance put forth his hand (ne forte mittat manum suum) andtake also of the Tree of Life and eat and live forever,” he findsanother exegetical hook to reverse what tradition had read as apunishment into a promise of future restoration, fixing on ne mit-tat as having an interrogative rather than a negative meaning in

this case, translating, “May he not perchance put forth his handand take also of the Tree of Life ?” In sum, Eriugena’s reading ofGenesis, and indeed his whole biblical interpretation, rests on thetheory and the practice of an apophatic exegesis in which nounsand verbs are often not what they seem. As a philosopher-theolo-gian, Eriugena creates an impressive theoretical foundation for hismode of reading the Bible ; as a philosophical exegete he puts it

78 On the transitus verborum in Periphyseon 1, see 453AB, 460C, 512C,522B, and especially the discussion of whether God can be said to love in504C-09B.


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into practice. All this is in the service of a deeper reading of theBible, as he says in the noted prayer from the end of Book 5 : “OLord Jesus, I ask of you no other reward, no other beatitude, noother joy, save that I may purely understand your words that havebeen inspired by your Holy Spirit without any error of a faultyspeculation.”79

Meister Eckhart on Genesis 1-3

More than four centuries after Eriugena completed his naviga-tion of the Hexaemeron Meister Eckhart took up the challenge.

Eckhart wrote two commentaries on the book, the second ofwhich also contains a sustained exposition of his theory of bib-lical interpretation.80 As with Eriugena, we are presented with apuzzle : Why did Eckhart write two commentaries ? Why did hepreface the second with an exposition on how to read scripture ?These issues are tied up with the evolution of Eckhart’s unfin-ished summa, the Opus tripartitum (Three-Part Work).

Much remains hypothetical about the dating of the Three-PartWork

and the reasons why the Dominican did not complete it. Thebook was conceived of as containing a Work of Propositions (Opus propositionum) consisting of foundational axioms for philosophicalargumentation divided into fourteen treatises, a Work of Questions(Opus quaestionum) modeled on Thomas’s Summa theologiae, anda Work of Expositions (Opus expositionum) divided into scripturalcommentaries to provide material for preaching and model ser-mons. Aside from the Prologues, what remains consists of six often

79 Periphyseon 5 (1010BC ; CCCM 165 :210) : O domine Iesu, nullum aliudpraemium, nullam aliam beatitudinem, nullum alium gaudium a te postulo,nisi ut ad purum absque ullo errore fallacis theoriae uerba tua, quae pertuum sanctum spiritum inspirata sunt, intelligam.

80 Eckhart might even be said to have written three commentaries onGenesis, or at least Gen. 1 :1, because the Prologus generalis to the Opus tripartitum contains a sample exegesis of this verse. See Prol. gen. nn. 14-22 in Meister Eckhart. Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke (Stuttgart : Kohlham-

mer, 1937- ), LW 1 :38-41. This edition is in two sections : Die deutschen Werke (DW) and Die lateinischen Werke (LW) and will be cited by volume, page, andline where needed. (The LW also numbers the sections of the text and thesewill be given here.)


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lengthy commentaries.81 The work may have been planned duringEckhart’s first period as a master in Paris (1302-03), and parts ofit, including the first Genesis commentary, appear to have beenwritten from about 1305 on after his return to his home conventat Erfurt.82

The first commentary, the Exposition on Genesis (Expositio inGenesim), like all of Eckhart’s interpretations, does not treat thetext of Genesis as a continuous narrative, but considers specificverses as auctoritates, that is, texts for investigation and preach-ing.83 Most of the auctoritates (forty out of seventy-six) concern the

first three chapters. Each verse is treated independently as thebasis for a mini-treatise, a procedure that allows for the develop-ment of quaestiones devoted to the analysis of themes related toparticular words and phrases, such as principium and coelum etterram in Gen. 1 :1 (nn. 2-14), homo ut imago of Gen. 1 :26 (nn. 115-

81 For an introduction to Eckhart’s Latin exegesis, see Donald F. Duclow,“Meister Eckhart’s Latin Biblical Exegesis,” in Jeremiah Hackett, ed., ACompanion to Meister Eckhart (Leiden : Brill, 2013), 321-36, as well as theremarks in Bernard McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart (NewYork : Crossroad, 2001), 22-29.

82 On the Latin writings, see the summary of Alessandra Beccarisi, “TheLatin Works,” in A Companion to Meister Eckhart, 85-123. Beccarisi dependson the work of Loris Sturlese cited in the following note.

83 The Expositio Libri Genesis (hereafter Expos. Gen.) exists in four manu-scripts and three forms. The earliest form is found in a ms. from the Biblio-theca Amploniana in Erfurt (E) and is edited in LW 1 :35-101. Loris Sturlese’sdiscovery of a hitherto-unknown recension of some of Eckhart’s Latin worksin a ms. in the Laud collection of the Bodleian Library in Oxford (L) rep-

resents a reworking and expansion of this and is edited in LW 1.2 :61-329.Finally, the longest form, with possible additions by later hands, is found intwo mss., one in the library of Nicholas of Cusa (C) and the other at Trier(T) and is edited in LW 1 :129- 444. On the relation of these versions and thehistory of the Opus tripartitum, see Loris Sturlese, “Un nuovo manoscrittodelle opera latine di Eckhart e il suo significato per la riconstruzione deltesto e della storia dell’Opus tripartitum,” Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophieund Theologie 32 (1985) : 145-54 ; “Maestro Eckhart. Tabula contentorum inLibro parabolorum Genesis secundum ordinem alphabeti,” in Scritti in onoredi Eugenio Garin (Pisa : Scuola Normale Superiore, 1987), 39-50 ; and “Meister

Eckhart in der Bibliotheca Amploniana. Neues zu Datierung des ‘Opus tri-partitum’,” in Andreas Speer, ed., Die Bibliotheca Amploniana. Ihre Bedeutungim Spannungsfeld von Aristotelismus, Nominalismus und Humanismus (Berlin-New York : Walter de Gruyter, 1995), 434-46.


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120),84 bonum of Gen. 1 :31 (nn. 127-141), and requievit of Gen. 2 :2(nn. 142-79). Eckhart occasionally says that he is going to providea literal reading, as in his interpretation of Gen. 1 :2c (spiritus deiferebatur super aquas), where “spirit” is the air, “God” is the firstmover, and “borne over the waters” indicates the “natural order ofthe elements.”85 Thus, the Dominican does not totally neglect thefirst level of the littera. Eckhart’s procedure is unusual, however,in giving little attention to the littera in the second sense, that is,the narrative structure of the text. This is true not only of Eck-hart’s Latin commentaries, but also of the way he treats biblical

texts in his preaching. The Dominican tends to deconstruct, even“atomize,” the biblical narrative. With regard to the third level ofthe littera, historical facticity, commenting on the beginning of theParadise story (Gen. 2 :8), Eckhart cites Augustine, John Dam-ascene, and Jerome saying that Paradise should be interpretednot just historically or just allegorically, but both historicallyand allegorically.86 In practice, however, he shows little interestin historical issues. When, at the end of the first section of hiscommentary on Genesis 1 :1, he says, “Let these points suffice for

the present regarding the literal exposition of the text” (n. 14),what he means is what Augustine meant, a philosophically-literalinterpretation.

Eckhart is another good example of a metaphysical exegete. Inintroducing his Exposition on the Gospel of John (Expositio sanctievangelii secundum Iohannem) he summarizes the philosophicalnature of his exegesis : “In interpreting this word (i.e., Jn. 1 :1) andeverything else that follows my intention is the same as in all myworks : to explain what the holy Christian faith and the two Tes-

taments maintain with the help of the natural arguments of thephilosophers.”87 The Dominican’s philosophical mode of expositionis designed to reveal three kinds of truths—divine, natural, and

84 The nature of the imago is one of the central themes of Eckhart’sthought. In this treatment, the Dominican refers to a lost or unwritten sec-tion of the Opus propositionum on De imagine (n. 115 ; LW 1 :270).

85 Expos. Gen. nn. 46-48 (LW 1 :218-19) : Praemissa verba exponuntur primolitteraliter, secundo moraliter.

86 Expos. Gen. n. 186 (LW 1 :329-30).87 Expositio evangelii secundum Iohannem (In Io.) n. 2 (LW 3 :4) : In cuius

verbi expositione et aliorum quae sequuntur, intentio est auctoris, sicut et in


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moral (divina-naturalia-ethica). Thus his reading of Genesis 1-3 isbased on philosophical principles regarding creation. These are setout not only in his two commentaries on Genesis, but also in hispreaching, notably in Latin Sermon XXIII. This sermon identifiestwo common errors about creation. The first is thinking that Godcreates outside himself. “Do not imagine,” he says, “that God cre-ates heaven and earth outside himself or alongside himself in somekind of nothing. Everything that happens in nothing, is surelynothing… By creating, God calls all things out of nothing andfrom nothing into existence.”88 God, says Eckhart, does not create

a principio, that is, “from the Principle,” but, as Genesis says, in principio, that is, he makes all things in himself. Creation in thePrinciple, i.e., in the “ideal reason” (ratio idealis), functioning aswhat he calls the “essential cause” (causa essentialis), is central toEckhart’s commentaries on Genesis, and, indeed, to his thinkingin general. Nothing is outside God. Whatever existence creatureshave is in and dependent upon God’s existence, so that creaturesconsidered in themselves are “one pure nothing,” a view that waslater condemned.89 The second false position is that God createdthe world and then rested as Genesis 2 :2 seems to suggest. Eck-hart says that “God created in such a way that he is always creat-ing.”90 Since there is no before or after in eternity, creation mustbe a continuous activity (creatio continua) and it must also be an

omnibus suis editionibus, ea quae sacra asserit fides Christiana et utriusque

testamenti scriptura, exponere per rationes naturales philosophorum.88 Sermo XXIII n. 223 (LW 4 :208) : Non est ergo imaginandum quod deus

creavit extra se et quasi iuxta se in quodam nihilo. Omne enim quod fit innihilo, utique fit nihil…. Non ergo deus creando mundum proicit sive effun-dit esse rerum in nihilum, sed e converso creando vocat cuncta ex nihilo eta nihilo ad esse. This principle is often repeated in Eckhart’s writings ; e.g., Prol. gen. n.17 (LW 1 :160) ; Expositio in Sapientiam (Expos. Sap.) n. 122 (LW2 :459) ; Sermones et lectiones in Ecclesiasticam (In Eccli.) n. 49 (LW 2 :207) ;Pr. 30 (DW 2 :94) ; etc. Eriugena also insists that God does not create outside God ; e.g., Periphyseon 3 (666C-67C ; CCCM 163 :68-70).

89

On this theme, Edward Howells, “Meister Eckhart’s Spirituality of Cre-ation as ‘Nothing’,” Eckhart Review 19 (2010) : 35-46.90 Expos. Gen. n. 20 (LW 1 :201). Creatio continua is found throughout Eck-

hart’s works.


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eternal activity (creatio aeterna).91 As a passage from his Exposi-tion on Wisdom puts it : “…according to the text of Genesis 1, ‘Inthe beginning God created heaven and earth.’ He says ‘created’in the past tense, ‘in the beginning’ in relation to becoming. Thecreated thing always possesses existence and receives existence.”92 To think of a time before creation is as much an error as thinkingof God resting after he had finished creating.

Underlying these transpositions of the tenses of verbs dealingwith the biblical account of creation is an important agreementbetween Eriugena and Eckhart : the temporal nature of creation

is true, but only from our own limited perspective. Later in the Exposition on Genesis, discussing Genesis 2 :2 (“God rested fromall the work he had done”), he says : “The fact that it says ‘haddone’ is not a problem. With God at one and the same time thesame thing and everything past and future both is present andis becoming and being done, according to John 5 :17, ‘My Fatherworks until now and I work’.”93 For Eckhart, creation properlyunderstood reveals the intersection of time and eternity, a situa-tion which reaches fulfillment in the Incarnation and in our own

realization of what Eckhart, following Paul (Gal. 4 :4), called the“fullness of time” ( plenitudo temporis).94

91 Creatio continua et eterna was also the teaching of Erigena, as shown inmultiple passages ; e.g., 556B-57A, 639BC, 669A-70D, 674AB, 675BC, 807B,etc. On the eternity of the world in Eriugena, Roques, “Genèse 1, 1-3 chezJean Scot,” 182-87.

92 Expos. Sap. n. 292 (LW 2 :627). …secundum illud Gen. 1 : ‘in principiocreavit deus caelum et terram’. ‘Creavit’ inquit in praeterito, ‘in principio’

quantum ad fieri. Semper enim creatum et esse habet et esse accipit,….93 Expos. Gen. n. 150 (LW 1 :301) : Nec obstat quod dicitur pataret. Apud

ipsum enim simul et id ipsum et praesens est et in fieri et operari omne prae-teritum et futurum, secundum illud Ioh. 5 : ‘pater meus usque modo operator,et ego operor’. The critical edition here notes the parallel to Periphyseon 3(699D ; CCCM 163 :116) ; see also 808A. This point is important for Eckhart,as we can see from almost identical formulation, also quoting Jn. 5 :17, in the Prol. gen. in Op. Trip. n. 21 (LW 1 :165).

94 Eckhart’s views of the relation of time and eternity cannot be pur-sued here, especially his seminal notion of the plenitudo temporis, on which

see Alois M. Haas, “Meister Eckharts Auffassung von Zeit und Ewigkeit,” Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 27 (1980) : 325-55 ; andNicholas Largier, Zeit, Zeitlichkeit, Ewigkeit. Ein Aufriss des Zeitproblems bei Meister Eckhart und Dietrich von Freiburg (Bern : Peter Lang, 1989) ; and


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The scholastic nature of Eckhart’s treatment of Genesis 1 :1 inthe Exposition (nn. 1-28) is evident in his initial posing of fourquaestiones : (1) What does it mean to create in principio ? ; (2) Whyis heaven named before earth ? ; (3) How can the one unchange-able God create many different things ? ; and (4) How can createdthings have their existence from another (ab aliunde) and still pos-sess it themselves ?95 Eckhart’s answer to these questions dependson a literal-philosophical reading with some moral expositions. Inhis usual fashion, he provides not just one single meaning of themain terms under discussion (in principio-creavit-coelum et terram),

but numerous interpretations. Like Eriugena, Eckhart was con-vinced that there was an inexhaustible fountain of meanings inany biblical passage.

The four questions are explored in the first part of the commen-tary on Genesis 1 :1 (nn. 2-14). Creation in principio means cre-ation in the “ideal reason,” that is, within the Son of God as theessential formal cause of all things (nn. 3-5). Creation takes placein the nature of the intellect (n. 6) and in “the first simple nowof eternity” (n. 7). Eckhart stresses the eternity of the “simple

now” in which creation is always happening in several sentences,a position later condemned as heretical in John XXII’s bull “Inagro dominico.” For example, article 3 of the bull hereticizes thestatement : “In one and the same time in which he was God andin which he begot his coeternal Son as God equal to himself inall things, he also created the world.”96 The second question dealswith the order and meaning of “heaven and earth” and allows

“Time and Temporality in the ‘German Dominican School’. Outlines of Phil-osophical Debate between Nicholas of Strasbourg, Dietrich of Freiburg, Eck-hart of Hochheim, and Ioannes Tauler,” in Pasquale Porro, ed., The MedievalConcept of Time. Studies in Scholastic Debate and its Reception in Early Modern Philosophy (Leiden : Bril l, 2001), 221-53.

95 The comment on Gen. 1 :1 is found Expos. Gen. nn. 1-28 (LW 1 :185-206),There is a translation in Meister Eckhart. The Essential Sermons, Commentaries,Treatises, and Defense, translated and introduced by Edmund Colledge andBernard McGinn (New York : Paulist Press, 1981), 82-95.

96 Expos. Gen. n. 7 (LW 1 :190) : Simul enim et semel quo deus fuit, quo

filium sibi coaeternum per omnia coaequalem deum genuit, etiam mundumcreavit. Eckhart vigorously defended his teaching on the eternity of cre-ation, both in the hearings at Cologne and at Avignon ; see the Processus con-tra Magistrum Echardum n. 120 (LW 5 :290).


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Eckhart to discuss the simultaneous nature of God’s creation ofall things (nn. 8-9), while the third issue, that is, how the oneGod can create a diversity of creatures, leads him to explore thenature of God as an intellectual agent “immediately producing thewhole universe,” which the Dominican playfully etymologizes asuni-versum, that is, “turned towards the One” (nn. 10-13). Finally,in answering the fourth question, Eckhart uses the definition ofcreation as collatio esse to argue that God alone possesses existencewithin himself (n. 14).97

Eckhart follows these literal-philosophical interpretations with

two brief moral readings (nn. 15-16), and then, in typical fashion,launches into a series of thirteen further meanings of the four keyterms of the first verse, stressing both creation being within God(n. 19) and creatio continua (n. 20). Some of these points are polem-ical, such as his attack on Avicenna’s view that God must createthe world through the first emanation, or Agent Intelligence (n.21). He follows this section with a series of interpretations, bothmoral and philosophical, of coelum et terram,98 before ending thetreatise with another characteristic theme : creation as a fall-

ing-away (casus) from the divine Oneness and therefore a meta-physical decline into duality and imperfection (nn. 26-28).99 Allthese readings may be described as literal-philosophical, but lateron in the Exposition on Genesis Eckhart begins to speak of the“parabolic sense,” as when he commences his comment on Genesis18 with the words, “Here you will find eight things to note undera figure or parabolically.” Eckhart’s use of parabola here is depen-dent on the Jewish philosopher-exegete, Moses Maimonides.100

97 At this point Eckhart refers the interested reader to the treatment ofGen. 1 :1 he had already given in the Prol. gen. in Op. Trip. nn. 14-21 (LW1 :159-165). There is a translation of this text by Armand Maurer in Master Eckhart. Parisian Questions and Prologues (Toronto : PIMS, 1974), 87-93.

98 Expos. Gen. nn. 22-25 (LW 1 :203- 05). These include : (1) heaven andearth as heavenly and earthly gifts (n. 22) ; (2) heaven and earth as goodand evil (n. 23) ; (3) heaven and earth as active and passive and as form andmatter (n. 24) ; and (4) heaven and earth as intellectual existence and actualexistence and as the superior and inferior (n. 25).

99

In support of this Eckhart cites the Jewish philosopher, Ibn Gabirol (n. 27).100 Expos. Gen. n. 229 (LW 1 :374). Eckhart’s other parabolic comments inthe Expos. Gen. include : (1) Gen. 2 :4 (erunt duo in carne una) in n. 199 (LW1 :345-47), explicitly noting Maimonides ; (2) Gen. 15 :12 on Abraham’s sleep


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At a subsequent date, probably around 1313, Eckhart com-posed a second commentary on Genesis, roughly the same lengthas the former.101 In this work the parabolical reading comes to thefore, as the title the Book of the Parables of Genesis (Liber parabo-lorum Genesis) indicates. This work was not intended to be a partof the Opus tripartitum and may have been the start of a secondincomplete series of commentaries under the general title, Liber parabolurum rerum naturalium. In the prologue Eckhart sets outhis hermeneutical theory. The Dominican did not employ thestandard medieval four senses of scripture (littera-allegoria-mora-

lis-anagogica), though he used the term allegoria occasionally. Hebegins the “Prologue” to this second Genesis commentary by stat-ing that after expounding “the more evident sense of the Bookof Genesis” in his first commentary, he now wishes “to bring tolight the more hidden sense of some things contained in them inparabolical fashion,” to illuminate “the theological, natural, andmoral truths hidden beneath the form and letter of the literalsense.”102 The goal, then, is “to dig out some mystical understand-ing from what is read.” None of this is unusual, but what follows

is. Eckhart subverts the traditional distinction between the lit-eral sense and the deeper meaning when he says : “Since the literalsense is that which the author of a writing intends, and God isthe author of every holy scripture, as has been said, then every

in n. 228 (LW 1 :372-73) ; (3) Gen. 16 on Hagar and Sara in nn. 229-33 (LW1 :374-78) ; (4) Gen. 17 :1ff. containing seven points on Abraham and circumci-sion and again making use of Maimonides in nn. 234-50 (LW 1 :379-93) ; and(5) Gen. 28 :12-13 on Jacob’s ladder in n. 288 (LW 1 :423), explicitly citing

Maimonides. The Liber parabolorum Genesis ( Par. Gen.) n. 178 (LW 1 :648) notesthat the readings of Gen. 15, 16, and 17 of Expos. Gen. are all parabolical.

101 The commentary on Gen. 1-3 in the Expos. Gen. takes up 175 pages inLW 1, while that in Par. Gen. is 157 pages. The Tabula auctoritatum of the Par.Gen. lists 28 auctoritates of which 14 deal with Gen. 1-3.

102 The prologus to the Par. Gen. is found in nn. 1-7 (LW 1 :447-56). Thispassage is Par. Gen. n. 1 (LW 1 :447) : Expeditis in prima editione quae dicendavidebantur quantum ad sensum apertiorem libri Genesis intentio nostra estin hac editione parabolorum transcurrendo aliqua loca tam huius libri quamaliorum sacri canonis elicere quaedam ‘sub cortice litterae’ parabolice con-

tenta quantum ad sensum latentiorem….[M]eliora et uberius inquirant quan-tum ad divina, naturalia et moralia, latentia sub figura et superficie sensuslitteralis. I use the translation in Meister Eckhart. The Essential Sermons….,92-95.


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ical senses of the littera have fallen away. Nevertheless, a numberof aspects of the Book of the Parables indicate that Eckhart nowtreats Genesis in a less atomistic fashion, paying more attention tothe systematic coherence of the book, albeit from the perspectiveof translating the parabolae into philosophical treatises.104

The Book of the Parables with its important prologue representsa deepening of Eckhart’s exegetical procedure, but not a funda-mental shift. This is evident by a look at some of the contents,which do not differ in essence from what we find in the Exposi-tion on Genesis, though they offer more detail and many new read-

ings. For example, the treatment of Genesis 1 :1, which containsseven parabolical readings and ten moral interpretations, beginswith a theological addition to what was found in the previouscomment.105 In light of the fact that parables teach divine truths,as well as natural and ethical ones, the Book of Parables openswith a discussion of in principio featuring the difference betweendivine and natural modes of production, that is, the emanation ofthe persons in the Trinity as contrasted with creation (nn. 9-20).(The Trinity did not feature in the Exposition.) A good deal of

the remaining exposition, however, is an expansion on the finalpoint of the interpretation of Genesis 1 :1 in the Exposition, that

104 The more systematic perspective of the Par. Gen. is evident, for exam-ple, from Eckhart’s synopsis of the essential points taught in Gen. 1-3 in Par.Gen. nn. 160- 65 (LW 1 :630-36). These are : (1) …quod creare sive facere dei,de quibus fit mentio primo capitulo, item dicere ipsius, de quo fit mentioprimo et tertio capitulo, id ipsum sunt et significant…, item praecipere dei,de quo fit mentio secundo capitulo…. (n. 160). (2) Patet etiam consequenter

quod tria his respondentia in creaturis, scilicet fieri sive creari, aut produci,a deo… id ipsum sunt (n. 160). (3) Because these locutiones, responsiones, obe-dientiae sive audientiae creaturis suavissima sunt (n. 161), Eckhart concludes,Universaliter enim intemporale semper est, et incorporale sive immateriale ubique (n. 162). (4) From this he draws a number of conclusions (nn. 163-65) con-cerning (a) how evil can never totally corrupt the good ; (b) how synderesisremains even in the damned ; (c) how God does not properly command anexternal act ; (d) how an external act is not properly good ; (e) how the exter-nal act is onerous but not the internal act ; and (f) how the internal act alwaysdirectly addresses God. One may wonder if this more systematic approach to

internal questions might have been influenced by Thomas Aquinas’s exegesisin which each book and chapter is divided into a series of issues or questions.105 Par. Gen. nn. 8-40 (LW 1 :479-507). There is a translation in Meister

Eckhart. The Essential Sermons…, 96-107.


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is, the difference between the One as absolute unity and creationas a fall from the One into duality. The commentary then turnsto a long analysis of coelum et terram interpreted parabolically asthe extrinsic principles of the universe (i.e., the active and passiveprinciples) and the internal principles (i.e., form and matter).106 Eckhart had already presented the germ of this reading in E

mcginn2014 exegesis as metaphysics_eriugena and eckhart on reading genesis 1-3

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