entitled Allegoriae in universam sacram scripturam,[1] saying in his lumbering Preface:
"Whoever desires to arrive at an understanding of Holy Scripture should consider when he should take the narrative historically, when allegorically, when anagogically, and when tropologically. For these four ways of understanding, to wit, history, allegory, tropology, anagogy, we call the four daughters of wisdom, who cannot fully be searched out without a prior knowledge of these. Through them Mother Wisdom feeds her adopted children, giving to tender beginners drink in the milk of history; to those advancing in faith, the food of allegory; to the strenuous and sweating doers of good works, satiety in the savoury refection of tropology; and finally, to those raised from the depths through contempt of the earthly and through heavenly desire progressing towards the summit, the sober intoxication of theoretical contemplation in the wine of anagogy.… History, through the ensample which it gives of perfect men, incites the reader to the imitation of holiness; allegory, in the revelation of faith, leads to a knowledge of truth; tropology, in the instruction of morals, to a love of virtue; anagogy, in the display of everlasting joys, to a desire of eternal felicity. In the house of our soul, history lays the foundation, allegory erects the walls, anagogy puts on the roof, while tropology provides ornament, within through the disposition, without through the effect of the good work."[2]
This work, alphabetically arranged, gave the allegorical significations of words used in the Vulgate, with examples; for instance:
"Ager (field) is the world, as in the Gospel: 'To the man who sowed good seed in his field,' that is to Christ, who sows preaching through the world.
- ↑ Migne 112, col. 849-1088. A number of these dictionaries were compiled, the earliest being the De formulis spiritalis intellegentiae of Eucherius, Bishop of Lyons, who died in 450, ed. by Pauly 1884. In the later Middle Ages Alanus de Insulis (post, Chapter XXIX.) compiled one.
- ↑ These distinctions, not commonly observed, are frequently reiterated. Says Hugo of St. Victor (see post, Chapter XXVIII.) in the Prologue to his De sacramentis : "Divine Scripture, with threefold meaning, considers its matter historically, allegorically, and tropologically. History is the narrative of facts, and follows the primary meaning of words; we have allegory when the fact which is told signifies some other fact in the past, present, or future; and tropology when the narrated fact signifies that something should be done." Cf. Hugo's Didascalicon, v. cap. 2, where Hugo illustrates his meaning, and points out that this threefold significance is not to be found in every passage of Scripture. In ibid, v. cap. 4, he gives seven curious rules of interpretation (Migne 176, col. 789-793). In his De Scripturis, etc.,praenotatiunculae, cap. 3 (Migne 175, col. 1 1 sqq.), Hugo speaks of the anagogical significance in the place of the tropological.
