On Invention and Disposition

On the Second Part of the Expository Art, or, On Invention

Concerning the first part of this sacred interpretive art, which we have named the Definitive — that is, concerning the senses of divine Scripture, and concerning the kinds of the sacred expositions, and concerning their number, definition, and usefulness — I have discoursed thus far, as much as the plan of the present undertaking seemed to require. It would now be consequent that I should pursue Invention, ¹ which is the second part of this Art, expounding all the rules and the several precepts of investigating and finding out the manifold and obscure varieties of the senses hidden in the divine letters. But since an exact treatment of Invention — scarcely to be unfolded [even] in a large and separate volume — cannot be comprehended in the small portion of a little book, and since many most excellent authors have left writings about it, accessible to all, it has seemed [good] to me to pass over the complete exposition of this part (as more than sufficiently explained by others) and to proceed to the third part of this art, which is called the Dispositive — by no author, up to this day, ever either described or observed. Yet, lest the curious reader complain that the Inventive part of the expository faculty has been utterly neglected by me, I will run through, in the briefest words, the sum of the chapters by which invention itself is comprehended, noting at the same time the names of the Authors who have treated of its several chapters.

Invention — which introduces us to the investigation of the hidden and abstruse senses of divine Scripture — is accomplished in a twofold kind: namely, the Historical, which hunts out the historical understandings, and the Mystical, which searches out the mystical meanings. Now the Historical kind of Invention embraces many species or parts, of which the more notable — and, among the rest, the more necessary — are: the Tropical, Topical, Chronical, Physical, Mathematical, and Ethical.

The Tropical ² is that which introduces the reader to the understanding of tropes, phrases, figures, idioms, properties, and locutions — especially Hebrew and Greek — and of all figurative expressions, in which the divine letters abound above the writings of all nations; ³ in which part Jerome, Augustine, Bede, and Sanctes Pagninus wrote many things, to be reviewed in the following volume. ⁴

The Topical, or Topographical, ⁵ is that which furnishes particular descriptions and maps of the provinces, regions, seas, mountains, rivers, forests, cities, towns, and other places which are read of in the sacred letters; which, among the Greeks, Eusebius of Caesarea did abundantly, and, among the Latins, Jerome, Bede, Matthaeus Aurogallus, Adamnan, Callistus, Orontius, and others to be enumerated in the next book. ⁶

The Chronical, or Chronographical, ⁷ is that which — for removing certain obscurities in the sacred letters that arise from the various computation of days, months, and years — explains all the series, successions, and enumerations of times, ages, years, Olympiads, weeks, and generations, with which the whole divine scripture is everywhere strewn. This part had, as its writers, notable beyond the rest: among the Greeks, Philo and Eusebius; among the Latins, Bede, Hermann the Lame, and John Driedo — of whom we shall speak in the fourth book. ⁸

The Physical ⁹ teaches the history, properties, habits, and chief powers of all natural things — that is, of the heavens, the elements, animals, and plants — which are described everywhere in the sacred letters. In this part there labored, among the Latins, Bede (in the book On the Nature of Things), Anselm (in the book On the Image of the World), Honorius of Autun (in a book of the same title), and Vincent bishop of Beauvais (in the Natural Mirror). ¹⁰

The Mathematical ¹¹ is that which opens the way to understanding certain Geometrical, Astronomical, Arithmetical, and Musical considerations — some of which are in the divine letters — treating of measures, of figures, of numbers, of the plan of buildings, of the motions of the heavens, of stars, of musical instruments, of the various harmony of sounds and voices. Of these Bede, Honorius of Autun, and Isidore wrote some things. ¹²

The Ethical ¹³ is that which exhibits certain brief little introductions concerning the moral virtues which are delivered in the sacred letters — such as those which Bonaventure the Cardinal, Humbert Master General of the Preachers, William bishop of Lyons, and Chrysostomus Javellus composed. ¹⁴ These, then, are the chief species of invention, comprehended under the historical kind of finding-out.

The second kind of Invention, which is called Mystical, ¹⁵ raises the readers to understanding the spiritual and loftier senses of divine Scripture — that is, the Allegorical, Anagogical, and Tropological understandings — with rules, formulas, and certain precepts applied to this end, by which (as by keys) the abstruse mysteries of spiritual understanding are unlocked, and the mystical significations of all words and terms are explained. In this part there flourished, among the Greeks, Cyril; among the Latins, Tyconius the African, Eucherius, Rabanus [Maurus], Hugh of St. Victor, Sanctes Pagninus, and very many others whom we shall enumerate in the following volume. ¹⁶ Now let it suffice to have noted these few things concerning the Inventive part of this art.

On the Third Part of the Expository Art, which is called the Dispositive

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[continuing from p162] The third and last part of this sacred art — which we call the Dispositive and the Methodical ¹⁷ — is that which teaches how to arrange the already-found senses of divine Scripture, and the already-described kinds of exposition, into an ordered series of narration, and to accommodate them through diverse modes of speaking and various ways of teaching, which we call Methods. Now the Methods, or ways, suited for handling and adapting the kinds of the sacred expositions, are almost innumerable; of which, those that are chief among the Catholic expositors of divine Scripture, and most used among the rest, are comprehended in the enumeration set below.

An Enumeration of the Methods which the holy expositors use in arranging the kinds of the sacred expositions; they are these:

These, therefore, and so many, are the Methods serving the sacred expositors, of which, in the present treatise, we are about to explain the descriptions, parts, offices, and examples, each separately. And we shall take, in place of a general theme and a most apt example for expressing the peculiar conditions and properties of each Method, Psalm 116 ¹⁸ — the shortest of all — showing how we may deduce its exposition through all the species of Methods, and turn it through the several varieties of the species, with the clearest rules and examples, taking the beginning of our treatment from the very translation of divine Scripture.