Review of the Language and Logic of the Bible: the Earlier Middle Ages, by G.R. Evans" (1987)

John Carroll University Carroll Collected

Theology & Religious Studies

4-1-1987 Review of The Language and Logic of the Bible: The aE rlier Middle Ages, by G.R. Evans Joseph F. Kelly John Carroll University, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Kelly, Joseph F., "Review of The Language and Logic of the Bible: The Earlier Middle Ages, by G.R. Evans" (1987). Theology & Religious Studies. 43. http://collected.jcu.edu/theo_rels-facpub/43

This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by Carroll Collected. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theology & Religious Studies by an authorized administrator of Carroll Collected. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 414 Reviews he ignoresthe theological,as opposed to the ecclesiological,development of Hussitism. No attemptis made to analyze the particulartheological positions being developed withinHussitism during the era; rather he is contentto confinethe differencespri- marily to ecclesiological conceptions, in particular,the attitudes of the two major Utraquistparties towardsRome. Yet late medieval theologywas quite diverseand this diversitywas likewiserepresented in the developmentof Hussitism.Moreover confes- sionalism,a termmost frequentlyemployed by scholarsof the Reformation,describes both the attemptsby the reformersof the sixteenthcentury to gain legal recognition foradherents to theirparticular theological position and theirattempts to identifywho properlycould be considered faithfulto thatparticular theological stance and formu- lation.Eberhard has masterfullyanalyzed the process of confessionalizationonly in the formersense. He has examined the dynamicsof confessionalizationas a socio-political phenomenon. What he has left undone is the equally necessaryinvestigation of the confessionalizationof late medieval Utraquism as a theologicalphenomenon.

DAVID P. DANIEL Concordia Seminary

G. R. EVANS, The Language and Logic of theBible: The EarlierMiddle Ages. Cambridge, Eng.; London; and New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1984. Pp. xix, 199. $34.50. THIS BRIEF STUDY concentrateson the shiftin medieval exegesis fromthe methodsof the Fathers to those of the Scholastics,with special attentiongiven to language and logic. The book's organizationis primarilythematic, which it must be, because Evans treats authors from Augustine (b. 354) to Thomas of Chobham (early thirteenth century).Given this chronological range, the subtitleis misleading and should have been "The Pre-ScholasticPeriod" or "To the Early Scholastics." Evans begins with"The Fatherson the Bible's Language" (pp. 1-8), and she concen- trates on Augustine and Gregory. These opening pages reveal one of the book's strengthsand weaknesses.The succinctdescriptions are clear and well done, especially for Augustine,but the reader feels uneasy - do these two adequately represent"the Fathers"?Augustine certainly knew his grammarand applied it to the biblicaltext, but the Antiochenes,whom Evans does not mention,insisted on knowingthe historical background of a text,surely a sine qua non forunderstanding its language. Evans has presumablyconcentrated on the Latin patresmost importantfor medieval exegesis, although even thatcan be debated; note, for example,Jean Leclercq's contentionthat OrigenesLatinus was often as importantas Augustine and Gregory. Similarlyshort shriftis given to the pre-Carolingians,of whom only Boethius and Bede meritmore than passing notice; except for Alcuin, the Carolingians fare little better. But when Evans gets to the eleventh centurythe book trulycomes to life. What earlier writershad hinted at, these writersmade the centerof theirmethod. Abelard, Alan of Lille, Anselm of Bec and Canterbury,Anselm of Laon, Peter the Chanter,and the Victorinesoccupy the stage, although always in the shadow of a unifyingtheme. Much patristicexegesis was controversialin orientation;from Tertullian and Origen down to Augustine the Fathers defended the Bible against misuse and misinterpreta- tion by hereticsor, more accurately,those deviating from patristicorthodoxy. This Reviews 415

caused them to stressthe theological understandingof the Bible. To cite an obvious example, Augustine may have made sound observationson the grammarof the biblical text,but these absolutelypale in significancebeside his theologicalinterpretations of sin, evil, grace, and providence, interpretationswhich dominated the historyof theologyand which made possible the work of Luther, Calvin, and Barth interalios. Furthermore,the Fathers were usually bishops who emphasized the pastoral and homileticvalue of biblical study; one thinks- inevitably- of Augustine but also of John Chrysostomand Caesarius of Arles. In the postpatristicperiod, withthe exception of Boethius,most of the authorswere monks,whose lives centered about the auctoritasabbatis and who gave corresponding respectto the auctoritaspatrum in theirexegesis. (Evans devotesonly five pages [ 13-17] to the monks before Anselm.) The earlyScholastics, on the other hand, were not primarilyengaged in polemicsor pastoralwritings, and the new tool of dialecticmade them,unlike the monks,willing to reconsider patristicmethods and interpretations.They picked up hintsfrom Augus- tine, Boethius, and Bede, but the spiritof theirexegesis was different. The firstpractitioner of the new method was Anselm of Bec and Canterbury,who wroteno biblicalcommentaries but who investigatedtheological problems by applying the rules of grammar and dialectic to the biblical text. He concentratedon particular textsrelevant to his purpose. "This extremeeconomy in the use of textsis the firstand most strikingthing which distinguishesAnselm's approach to the studyof the Bible fromthat of the commentator. . ." (p. 20); ". . . [he was] looking not for images and correspondences but for the exact relation at a literal level between the word or expression and what it designates" (p. 22). He raised the question of signification- the many meanings of one word and its meaning in a particularcontext (supposition), a common point of later exegesis. Hugh of Saint Victor,for example, observed on 1 Peter 5.8, "the Devil prowls like a roaring lion," that the word "lion" signifiesthe animal itself,which in its turn signifiesthe Devil (pp. 53-54). The interestin biblical words quickly extended to numbers. Odo of Morimond followedAugustine - and ultimatelyPythagoras - in seeing numbers as "an exem- plar and patternin the whole creation' (pp. 61-62), but, in the new terminology,he observed that numbers signifybut are never signified.Like words numbers may sig- nifymore than one thing,so thattheir context must always be apprehended, and thus Odo took over Anselm'sapproach to signification.This approach preservedand trans- formed the patristicheritage. One beneficiaryof the new approach was historicalstudy. "The literal sense had frequentlybeen described as 'historical'throughout the earlier mediaeval centuries, because it is at thislevel thatthe texttells a story(historia)" (p. 68). The new demand for verbal precision splitthese two up, and Hugh of Saint Victordistinguished the veritas rerumgestarum and theformaverborum (p. 69). Historydeals withthings done, the literal sense with words - another question of signification.This distinctionled to a new appreciation of ancient historiansand a new understandingof history. The largestpart of the book (twenty-ninepages) deals withexegesis and the theory of signification,covering such topics as imposition,consignification, and implicitpropositions. The chapter provides a valuable surveyof how the differentfacets of the theoryof significationwere applied to the text,but the reader mustbe concerned that for several topics Evans looks to only one writer,for example, Gerhoch of Reichers- berg for implicitnessin w^ordsor Ralph of Beauvais for grammarand practicalcriti- cism. Evans does not explain whether the authors chosen were the firstto use this 416 Reviews mode of exegesis or at least the firstto do so on a large scale or the mostimportant or the most representative. But Evans does demonstrate the effectof the new techniques. When Ralph of Beauvais used grammaticalrules better to understand the 1fible,he found that the biblicaltext stretched the rules,which in turnforced him to rethinkhis understanding of grammar(pp. 86-87). The theoryof consignificationdemonstrated that "All verbs have joint significations"because of theirtenses, which led to discussionof how tenses could be applied to God, the subject of many biblical verbs (p. 88). In a twistof the traditionalsensus plenior the theoryof implicitpropositions demonstrated that some statementsinclude more than their surface value because the words implied other terms (if God is good, he must of necessitybe just and merciful),and this theory elucidated some biblicalobscurities (pp. 91-92). Althoughthis may not have been the author'sintention, Evans repeatedlydemonstrates how laterwriters reworked patristic concepts. An implicit proposition may not be an allegory, but it serves the same purpose: to locate the meaning beneath the surface of the text. Evans closes the book by examiningthe earlydisputatio, specifically the applicationof the quaestioand the oftenproblematic use of contradictoryauthorities in answeringthe quaestio.Abelard, of course, figuresprominently here. In the spiritof the book I can categorize it as dissatisfyinglysatisfying. It is a good book, clear and usually well argued, but withoutenough evidence. The reader comes away feeling that Evans is probably correct,but that the topic is too vast for her conclusions to be secure. One must hope that the author will return to the topic at greater length in a futurevolume.

JOSEPH F. KELLY John Carroll University

ANDRt GODDU, The Physicsof Williamof Ockham.(Studien und Texte zur Geistesge- schichtedes Mittelalters,16.) Leiden and Cologne: E. J. Brill, 1984. Paper. Pp. x, 243. Hfl 84. PERHAPS the single most provocative area of Ockham's thought in his day and in succeeding generations was his physics: specificallyhis views on quantity,relation, place, motion,and time. It is surprising,therefore, that these issues have received as littleattention as they have in the secondary literatureon Ockham. They were addressed in part in Erich Hochstetter'sground-breaking Studien zur Metaphysikund ErkenntnislehreWilhelms von Ockham(1927) and made the subject of Herman Shapiro's Motion,Time and Place accordingto WilliamOckham (1957). Only in the last few years have Ockham's commentarieson Aristotle'sPhysics appeared in criticaleditions (Opera philosophica,4-6 [1984-85]), although his viewson these subjectswere expressed in his commentaryon the Sentencesas well as his Quodlibetaand Summalogicae. Goddu's is the firstrecent studyof Ockham's physics,which will no doubt be addressed by othersin the years ahead. Goddu divides his studyinto two parts.After a briefbiographical and historiograph- ical introduction,the firstsection (composed of two chapters) sets forth the epis- temologicaland logical foundationof Ockham's natural philosophy.The second sec- tion (in four chapters) explores Ockham's physics,specifically its general principles, Ockham's theoriesof place and void, timeand eternity,and finallyinfinity and motion.