The Bible and the Emergence of Modern Science Peter Harrison.

The Bible

and the

Emergence of Modern

Science

Peter Harrison

The Bible and the Emergence of Modern Science

Allegory and the ‘Two Books’

Allegory in Practice

Reforming the Reading of Scripture

Reinterpreting the Book of Nature

For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.

Romans 1:20

I think that He who made all things in wisdom so created all the species of visible things upon the earth, that He placed in some of them some teaching and knowledge of things invisible and heavenly, whereby the human mind might mount to spiritual understanding and seek the grounds of things in heaven.

Commentary on the Song of Songs

Origen (c185-c254)

What man of intelligence will believe that the first and the second and third day and the evening and the morning existed without the sun and moon and stars….

One must therefore record the meaning of the sacred writings in a three-fold way….

De Principiis

Origen (c185-c254)

Augustine

(354-430)

Levels of Interpretation

Literal Allegorical

OBJECT

WORD OBJECT OBJECT

OBJECT

Levels of Interpretation

Literal Allegorical

OBJECT

WORD OBJECT OBJECT

OBJECT

‘Book of Scripture’ ‘Book of

Nature’

Literal Allegorical

OBJECT

WORD OBJECT OBJECT

OBJECT

‘The author of Holy Writ is God,

in whose power it is to signify His

meaning, not by words only …

but also by things themselves….

The multiplicity of these senses

does not produce equivocation or

any other kind of multiplicity,

seeing that these senses are not

multiplied because one word

signifies several things, but

because the things signified by

the words can be themselves

types of other things.’

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1a.

1, 10

For the whole sensible world is

like a kind of book written by the

finger of God—that is, created by

divine power—and each particular

creature is somewhat like a

figure, not invented by human

decision, but instituted by the

divine will to manifest the

invisible things of God’s wisdom.

Hugh of St Victor (d.1142)

De tribus diebus

‘The creature of the world

is like a book in which the

creative Trinity is

reflected, represented,

and written’.

Bonaventure,

Breviloquium II.12. Bonaventure

(1217-74)

The Bible and the Emergence of Modern Science

Allegory and the ‘Two Books’

Allegory in Practice

Reforming the Reading of Scripture

Reinterpreting the Book of Nature

The Quadriga: Four-fold interpretation

Literal Sense - historical or grammatical meaning

Tropological Sense - the moral application of the narrative

Anagogical Sense - the spiritual or theological meaning

Allegorical Sense - the meaning of the objects referred to by the

literal words

The Quadriga: Four-fold interpretation

Literal Sense - historical or grammatical meaning

Tropological Sense - the moral application of the narrative

Anagogical Sense - the spiritual or theological meaning

Allegorical Sense - the meaning of the objects referred to by the

literal words

Medieval Bestiary

Adoro Te Devote

Pie Pellicane, Jesu Domine,

Me immundum munda Tuo sanguine

Loving Pelican, Oh Jesus Lord

Unclean am I but cleanse me in Thy blood.

Thomas Aquinas

Literal Allegorical

OBJECT

WORD OBJECT OBJECT

OBJECT

Literal Allegorical

OBJECTChrist

WORD OBJECT OBJECT‘Pelican’ Pelican Egypt

OBJECTThe World

The Bible and the Emergence of Modern Science

Allegory and the ‘Two Books’

Allegory in Practice

Reforming the Reading of Scripture

Reinterpreting the Book of Nature

‘[The literal sense] is the highest, best, strongest, in short the whole substance, nature and foundation of the holy scripture.’

Luther, Answer to the Hyperchristian Book, Works 39, 177.

Scripture, they say, is fertile and thus bears multiple meanings…

But I deny that its fertility consists in the various meanings which anyone may fasten to it at his pleasure. Let us know, then, that the true meaning of Scripture is the natural and simple one….

John Calvin, Commentaries on the Pauline Epistles.

Book of Scripture Book of

Nature

Literal Allegorical

OBJECT

WORD OBJECT OBJECT

OBJECT

Book of Scripture Book of

Nature

Literal Allegorical

OBJECT

WORD OBJECT OBJECT

OBJECT

?

Glossa ordinaria (Venice, 1484)

‘Scripture without any glosses is the sun and the whole light from which all teachers receive their light, and not vice versa.’

Luther, Answer to a Hyperchristian Book.

The Bible and the Emergence of Modern Science

Allegory and the ‘Two Books’

Allegory in Practice

Reforming the Reading of Scripture

Reinterpreting the Book of Nature

‘[There are] two books or

volumes to study, if we will

be secured from error; first

the scriptures, revealing

the will of God, and then

the creatures expressing

his power; whereof the

latter is a key unto the

former.’

Advancement of Learning I.vi.16.

Francis Bacon

(1561-1626)

‘Philosophy is written in this

grand book, the universe,

which stands continually open

to our gaze. But the book

cannot be understood unless

one first learns to comprehend

the language and read the

letters in which it is composed.

It is written in the language of

mathematics, and its

characters are triangles,

circles, and other geometrical

figures without which it is

humanly impossible to

understand a single word of it.’

Galileo Galilei

The Assayer

‘… for as (such is God’s condescension to human weakness) most of the texts, to whose exposition physiology is necessary, may be explicated by the knowledge of the external, or at least more easily observed qualities of the creatures; so, there are divers not to be fully understood without the assistance of more penetrating indagations of the abstrusities of nature, and the more unobvious properties of things, an intelligent and philosophical peruser will readily discern.’

Robert Boyle (1627-1691)

Usefulness of Natural Philosophy

John Ray (1627-1705)

‘[We have] wholly omitted what we find in other authors concerning homonymous and synonymous words, or the divers names of birds, hieroglyphics, emblems, morals, fables, presages, or ought else pertaining to divinity, ethics, grammar, or any sort of humane learning.’

Ray and Willughby, Ornithology (1678)

‘Necessary for all divines and students because the story of every beast is amplified with narrations out of scriptures, fathers, phylosophers, physicians, and poets: wherein are declared divers hyeroglyphicks, emblems, epigrams, and other good histories.

Edward Topsell (1607, 1653).

Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine - Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile madeThe tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade.

John Keats (1795-1821)

‘Lamia’

Lamia

from Topsell, Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes (1607)