The Twenty-First Method: Accumulation

On Accumulation — The Twenty-First Method

Accumulation (Coacervatio), or the amassing manner of expounding, is twofold: ¹ the one consisting in the accumulation of senses, the other of testimonies. The first is that which, for the elucidation of the passage taken up, either heaps together four or six chief expositions of divine scripture at once mingled and confused, or, gathering them singly and separately, subjoins one after another and joins them into one series of continuous explanation. For among the expositors there are some who, keeping no order, confound Historical, Ethical, and Mystical explanations, without any distinction, into one heap; but, on the contrary, some to whom order is pleasing lay down first the Historical narration, as the basis of the whole explanation; in the second place they set over it the Moral, for the profit of readers; thirdly they add the Allegory; fourthly the Anagogy, for delight and ornament — which

…which, among the more recent, Denis the Carthusian observed in his commentaries on the Psalms, and William Pepin in his commentaries on Genesis and Exodus, most diligently. But among the ancients, St. Gregory, in his commentaries on Job, immediately after the Historical exposition subjoins the Allegorical and the Anagogical (which with him are the same); ² and from these, lastly, he draws out the springs of the Ethical (moral) narration, for the forming of morals.

The Second Mode of Accumulation

The second mode of Accumulation is placed in the aggregation of testimonies; which, for the untying and confirmation of the passage proposed, brings together into one various testimonies, authorities, and similar passages out of the divine letters, contracted into one — and these again, especially if they be obscure and involved, it expounds in particular, a new exposition being interposed and superadded; whence it happens that, while the expositor proceeds by expounding the individual scripture-testimonies adduced, the body of the explanation grows in a manner immense, and scarcely finds an end. In this kind of expounding there toiled, among the scholastics, Henry of Langenstein, ³ who, having spent many years in the public exposition of Genesis, scarcely reached the fourth chapter of that book after four whole years, having published on these four great volumes, in which he interpreted almost all the books of both Testaments. Him Thomas Hasselbach surpassed by a far more prolix work, ⁴ who, when in the space of one-and-twenty years he had not yet reached the end of the first chapter of Isaiah (which he had continuously expounded), at last left twenty-four books of his Exposition on the first chapter of Isaiah. But among the Fathers, St. Gregory labored in this task with greater praise, ⁵ who in all his writings — but especially in the thirty-five books of his Commentaries on Job — so heaped together the sentences and fragments of so many divine oracles, and expounded what he had heaped up, that from these, as from a most rich storehouse, many not ignoble expositors received entire expositions of almost all the volumes of holy scripture: such as Paterius, notary of St. Gregory; Claudius, abbot of Chiusa; Bede the Presbyter; Alulf the monk; Werner of Paris; and very many other students of the Gregorian reading, who gathered from Gregory’s sentences explanations upon both Testaments. Since an example of this Method cannot be given without much prolixity, we remit the curious reader to the commentaries of St. Gregory on Job, but especially to the second book of that work — in whose 29th, 30th, and 38th chapters, for the exposition of that sentence, Then Job arose, and rent his garments, and, his head being shaved, falling down upon the earth, adored, etc., ⁶ there are brought forward and explained twelve divine testimonies gathered from various places of the Bible.