Complete Works

...now they represent them by wheels and animals, now by elements; hence celestial names are often given to earthly things. For indeed, bound by the bonds of concord, the natures of the world—out of a certain liberality—grant to one another their names just as they do their natures. From this principle (if anyone has not yet noticed this) the discipline of the entire allegorical sense has emanated. Nor could the ancient fathers have fittingly represented some things by other figures, unless they had been taught the secret—so to speak—friendships and affinities of all nature. Otherwise, there would be no reason why they should have represented this thing by this image rather than another. But being knowledgeable of things and driven by that spirit which not only knows but made all these things, they most aptly figured the natures of one world by those things which they knew corresponded to them in the remaining worlds.

Therefore, the same knowledge is required (unless the same spirit be present) for those who wish to rightly interpret their figures and allegorical senses. But besides the three we have described, there is another fourth world in which all those things are found which are in the others; The fourth world this is man himself, who for that reason, as the Catholic doctors say, is designated in the Gospel by the name of "every creature," since the Gospel must be preached to men, but not to brutes and angels; yet it is commanded by Christ to be preached to "every creature." In what way man is a lesser world It is a trite saying in the schools that man is a lesser world, in whom is seen a body mixed from elements, a celestial spirit, the vegetative soul of plants, the sense of brutes, reason, the angelic mind, and the likeness of God.

If, therefore, we establish these four worlds, it is credible that Moses, being about to speak sufficiently of the world, discoursed on these; That Moses treated all these worlds. That Scripture is this image of nature. and since a writer portrays nature if he is learned in nature—as we believe this man of ours to be if anyone is—it is credible that his doctrine concerning them was arranged no differently than the omnipotent God the Craftsman arranged them in themselves, so that this scripture of Moses might be a true, expressed image of the world, just as we read it was commanded to him on the mountain where he learned these things, that he should make all things according to the pattern he had seen on the mountain.

First, therefore—and this is the greatest point of all—just as we have shown that what is in all worlds is contained in each, Moses, an emulator of nature, ought not to treat any of those worlds without treating all of them equally and simultaneously under the same words and the same context. The root of the fourfold exposition Whence immediately a fourfold exposition of the entire Mosaic reading arises: so that in the first place we explain whatever is written there concerning the angelic and invisible world, making no mention at all of the others. In the second place, likewise, all things concerning the celestial world; then concerning this sublunary and corruptible world; and fourthly, concerning the nature of man. For if he never treats, for example, the intelligible world without the same scripture admonishing us of the remaining worlds (just as that world contains in itself all the lower natures), we certainly can, indeed we ought to, interpret all the small parts concerning all of them.

Again, just as natures, although they are contained promiscuously within each other, have nevertheless been allotted distinct and proper seats and certain peculiar laws, The root of the fifth exposition so also, if in the individual parts of the present work the same sequence of the letter discourses on the fourfold nature, it must nevertheless be believed that in the first part the first nature is treated more particularly, and then in the others in the same order. Whence also the necessity of a fifth exposition arises.

It is added that by the same reason these things are distinct, because however there is no multitude which is not one, they are bound by a certain discordant concord The root of the sixth exposition and tied together by multiform chains of connections, as it were. Since it is likely that Moses does this throughout the whole work, it calls us, even against our will, to a sixth interpretation. In which we shall show that there are fifteen modes by which we can understand one thing as kindred or joined to another, and since there are neither more nor fewer, they are all so sufficiently, extensively, and clearly expressed by the prophet that Aristotle never wrote anything more expressly about the nature of things. Finally, just as the Sabbath follows the six days of Genesis—that is, the deeds...

The root of the seventh exposition