Spiritual Knowledge

Sed ad expostionem scientiae de qua sumptum est sermonis exordium revertamur. Itaque, sicut superius diximus, practice erga multas professiones ac studia derivatur. Theoretice vero in duas dividitur partes, id est, in historicam interpretationem, et intelligentiam spiritalem. Unde etiam Salomon cum Ecclesiae multiformem gratiam enumerasset adjecit: Omnes enim qui apud eam sunt, vestiti sunt dupliciter. Spiritalis autem scientiae genera sunt, tropologia, allegoria, anagoge; de quibus in Proverbiis ita dicitur, Tu autem describe tibi ea tripliciter, super latitudinem cordis tui. Itaque historica praeteritarum ac visibilium agnitionem complecitur rerum quae ita ab Apostolo replicatur: Scriptum est enim quai Abraham duos filios habuit, unum de ancilla, et alium de libera; sed qui de ancilla, secundum carnem natus est; qui autem de libera, per repromissionem. Ad allegoriam autem pertinent quae sequuntur, quia ea quae in veritate gesta sunt, alterius sacramenti formam praefigurasse dicuntur: Haec enim, inquit, sunt duo testamenta: unum quidem de monte Sina, in servitutem generans, quod est Agar: Sina enim mons est in Arabia, quis comparatur huic, quae nunc est Jersusalem, et servit cum filiis suis. Anagoge vero de spiritalibus mysteriis ad sublimiora quaedam et sacratiora coelorum secreta conscendens, ab Apostolo ita subjicitur: Quae autem sursum est Jerusalem libera est, quae est mater nostra. Scriptum est enim: Laetare sterilis, quae non paris; erumpe et clama, quae non parturis; quia multi filii desertae magis quam ejus quae habet virum. Tropologia est moralis explanatio, ad emendationem vitae et instructionem pertinens actualem, velut si haec eadem duo Testamenta intelligamus practicem et theoreticem disciplinam; vel certe si Jerusalem aut Sion animam hominis velimus accipere, secundum, Lauda, Jerusalem, Dominum; lauda Deum tuum, Sion. Igitur praedictae quatuor figurae in unum ita si volumus confluunt, ut una atque eadem Jerusalem quadrifairm possit intelligi: secundum historiam civitas Judaeorum, secundum allegoriam Ecclesia Christi, secundum anagogen civitas Dei illa coelestis quae est mater omnium nostrum; secundum tropologiam anima hominis, quae frequenter hoc nomine aut increpatur, aud aludatur a Domino. De his quator interpretationum generibus Apostlus ita dicit: Nunc autem, fratres, si venero ad vos linguis loquens, quid vobis prodero, nisi vobis loquar, aut in revelatione, aut in scientia, aut in prophetia, aut in doctrine? Revelatio namque ad allegoriam pertinet, per quam ea quae tegit historica narratio spirituali sensu et expositione reserantur, ut, verbi gratia, si illud aperire tentemus, quemadmodum, patres nostri omnes sub nube fuerint, et omnes in Mose baptizati sint in nube et in mari, et quaemadmodum omnes eadem escam spiritalem manducaverint, et eumdem spiritalem de consequenti petra biberint potum; petra autem erat Christus; quae expositio praefigurationi corporis et sanguinis Christi, quem quotidie summus, comparata, allegoriae continet rationem. Scientia vero quae similiter ab Apostolo memoratur, tropologia est, qua universa quae ad discretionem pertinent actualem, utrum utilia vel honesta sint, prudenti examinatione discernimus, ut est illud: Cum apud nosmetipsos judicare praecipimur, utrum deceat mulierem non velato capite orare Deum. Quae ratio, ut dictum est, moralem continet intellectum. Item prophetia, quam tertio Apostolis intulit loco, anagogen sonat, per quam ad invisibilia ac futura sermo transfertur, ut est illud: Nolumus autem vos ignorate, fratres, de dormientibus, ut non contristemini, sicut et caeteri qui spem non habent. Si enim credimus quod Christus mortuus est et resurrexit, ita et Deus eos qui dormierunt, per Jesum adducet cum eo. Hoc enim vobis dicimus in verbo Domini, quia nos qui vivimus, qui residui sumus, in adventu Domini non praeveniemus, eos qui dormierunt quoniam ipse Dominus in jussu et in voce archangeli, et in tuba Dei descendet de caelo; et mortui qui in Christo sunt, resurgent primi. Qua exhortationis specie anagoges figura praefertur. Doctrina vero simplicem historiae expostionis ordinem pandit, in qua nullus occultior intellectus, nisi qui verbis resonat, continetur, sicut est illud: Tradidi enim vobis in primis quod et accepi, quoniam Christus mortuus est pro peccatis nostris, secundum Scripturas, et quia sepultus est, et quia resurrexit tertia die, et quia visus est Cephae. Et Misit Deus Filium suum factum ex muliere, factum sub lege, ut eos qui sub lege erant redimeret. Sive illud: Audi, Israel, Dominus tuus, Deus unus est. Sanctus Ioannes Cassianus, Collatio XIV, Caput VIII, De Spiritali Scientia Source: Migne PL 49.962b-965b

But let us return to the explanation of the knowledge from which our discussion began. Thus, as we said earlier, practical knowledge is distributed among many disciplines and interests, but the theoretical is divided into two parts, that is, the historical interpretation and the spiritual understanding. Whence Solomon, when he had enumerated the manifold grace of the Church, added: 'For all who are with her are clothed with double garments.' 1 But of spiritual knowledge there are different kinds: tropological, allegorical, and anagogical, concerning which it is said in Proverbs: 'But describe these things to yourself in three ways, according to the largeness of your heart.' 2 Thus the historical embraces the knowledge of things past and visible, which is repeated by the Apostle: 'For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave, the other by a free woman, but he who was of the slave was born according to the flesh, he who was of the free woman by the promise.' 3 But to allegory belongs what follows this, for those things which actually happened are said to have prefigured the form of some mystery: 'For these,' he says, 'are the two covenants, one from Mount Sinai, which births to bondage, which is Agar; for Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which is compared to Jerusalem which now is, and she is in servitude with her children.' Then the anagogical, rising up amid the spiritual mysteries to the still more sublime and sacred secrets of heaven, is given after by the Apostle as: 'But the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother. For it is written, Rejoice, barren one who has not born, break forth and cry out, you that travail not, for many more are the children of her desolate than of her that has a husband.' 4 The tropological is the moral explanation concerning the improvement of life and practical instruction, as if we were to understand by these two covenants practical and theoretical instruction, or certainly if we were to wish to take Jerusalem or Sion as the soul of man according to: 'Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Sion.' 5 Therefore these four mentioned figures coalesce, if we wish, in one subject, so that one and the same Jerusalem can be understood in four senses: according to the historical, as the city of the Jews; according to the allegorical as the Church of Christ, according to the anagogical as the heavenly city of God 'which is the mother of us all,' and according to the tropological as the soul of man, which under this name is frequently subject to praise or censure from the Lord. Concerning these four kinds of interpretation the Apostle says: 'But now, brothers, if I were to come to you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you unless I speak to you either by revelation or by knowledge or by prophecy or by doctrine?' 6 For revelation belongs to allegory, by which what is concealed by the historical is revealed in its spiritual sense and interpretation, as, for example, if we tried to explain how 'all our fathers were under the cloud and were all baptized in Moses in the cloud and in the sea,' and how they 'all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink from the rock that followed them; which rock was Christ.' 7 Which explanation in the prefiguration of the body and blood of Christ, which we receive daily, contains the allegorical sense. But the knowledge, which is in the same way recalled by the Apostle, is tropological, by which, with diligent study, we see all things that have to do with practical discernment, whether they are useful and good, as when we are told to judge for our own selves 'whether it is fitting for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered.' 8 Which understanding, as has been said, contains the moral meaning. That prophecy which the Apostle puts in the third place indicates the anagogical sense, by which the words are applied to things unseen and of the future, as it is said: 'But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who sleep: that you not grieve as those who have no hope. For if we believe that Christ died and rose again, even so those who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say to you by the word of God, that we who are alive, we who remain at the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who sleep, because the Lord Himself will command in the voice of an archangel and with the trump of God He shall descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.' 9 In which kind of exhortation the figure of anagoge is brought forward. But doctrine offers the simple course of historical exposition, under which no hidden meaning is contained but just what is declared by the words, as with: 'For I delivered to you first of all what I also received, how Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again on the third day, and that he was seen by Cephas.' 10 And: 'God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, to redeem those under the Law.' 11 Or: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord the God is one Lord.' 12 Saint John Cassian, The Conferences, Conference 14, Chapter 8, On Spiritual Knowledge 1 Prov 31.21 Versio Antiqua 2 Prov 22.20 Versio Antiqua 3 Galat 4.23 4 Galatians 4.22-27 5 Ps 147.1 6 1 Cor 14.6 7 1 Cor10.1-4 8 1 Cor 11.13 9 1 Thess 4.12-15 10 1 Cor 15.3-5 11 Galat 4.4-5 12 Deut 6.4