3. Dedication Letter to The Commentary on the Six Days of Creation
dedication letter to The Commentary on the Six Days of Creation The Expositio in Hexameron (The Commentary on the Six Days of Creation) delivers an explanation of the opening of Genesis that Abelard wrote at Heloise's request. It appears to have been composed before at least one of The Sermons (Sermon 29), and it has been dated to the early to mid-1130s, tentatively about 1133, although perhaps with an addition made as late as 1137.1 In its content and wording it displays a close connection with the hymns in the first book of The Paraclete Hymnal.2 In the commentary Abelard examines the structure of the six days of creation (whence the term hexaemeron, simply the Greek for "six days"), the allegories contained in the Genesis account, and the ethical meaning of the creation allegories. The commentary is not complete: even in manuscripts with the fullest extant form of the text, it covers only Genesis 1.1–2.25, breaking off just before the fall of Adam and Eve.
In the very first sentence of the Dedication Letter Abelard identifies three sections of the Bible as posing especial difficulties for prospective interpreters, namely, the opening of Genesis, the Song of 1. See Mews, "On Dating the Works of Peter Abelard," 118–20 and 132, and Expositio in Hexameron, ed. Mary F. Romig, in Petri Abaelardi opera theologica, vol. 5, ed. Charles
Burnett and Mary Romig, CCCM 15 (2004): lxxiv ("early to mid 1130s"). Compare the dating of 1136–1140 previously proposed by Eligius M. Buytaert, "Abelard's Expositio in Hexaemeron," Antonianum 43 (1968): 163–94, at 182–88.
2. For information, see De Santis, I sermoni, 141.
dedication to commentary on creation
Songs, and the prophecies of Ezekiel. Not one to shy from the difficult, Abelard wrestled as an exegete with each of these three sections in the Sacred Scriptures, although only The Commentary on the Six Days of Creation is known to survive as an effort (albeit merely partial) at a full-blown exposition.
As Abelard recounted in the Historia calamitatum, he had grappled already long before with the prophecies of Ezekiel.3 Upon being challenged by students of Anselm of Laon not just to carp at the insufficiencies of their master but instead to show how to do him better, Abelard had expounded upon the prophet almost by chance in comments (which he would not necessarily ever have written out in toto) as his first attempt at exegesis; he claims to have formulated his lecture from one day to the next. By including Ezekiel here in the short list of troubling passages in the Bible, Abelard could allude to a copy of a commentary he had later set down in writing and already donated to the Paraclete. Alternatively, he could be setting the stage for a subsequent request by Heloise that he devise one, which would enable him then to revise for presentation to the nuns whatever ideas or even whatever old draft (if any) he had retained.
And what of the Song of Songs?4 Owing to his past affair with Heloise and also his prospective audience of nuns, it could be imagined that Abelard would have had good reason to avoid the sultry eroticism of the Song of Songs. Yet such a supposition would be illfounded. As can be proven by a glance at the daring and yet subtle parallels he drew in the Planctus (for instance, the Lament of Dinah) between biblical episodes and events in his life, Abelard did not hesitate to delve even into matters such as premarital sex and castration.
A greater obstacle than any hypothesized timidity on Abelard's part 3. Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, pp. 68–70, lines 186–240; trans. Radice, pp.
7–8.
4. The reception of the Song in the Middle Ages, with extensive attention to Latin materials, has been the topic of three books: Ann W. Astell, The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990); E. Ann Matter, The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990); and Denys Turner, Eros and Allegory: Medieval Exegesis of the Song of Songs, Cistercian Studies Series 156 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications,
1995). Only the second gives much coverage to Peter Abelard.
heloise and the nuns of the paraclete owing to his sexual past with Heloise could appear to be that the Song of Songs was conventionally reserved for the most advanced learners, as Jerome stated in a passage quoted in Letter Nine. However, this impediment vanishes when one realizes that Abelard's writings for the Paraclete show him trying to pervade the existence of the nuns, insinuating his ideas and words not merely into the cyclical patterns of the liturgy as it repeated itself over the hours of the days, days of the week, and seasons, but even into the passage of the nuns through the stages of life, as they grew spiritually from girlhood or young womanhood to (as he hoped) ever greater spirituality and wisdom. It would have been natural for him eventually to proffer his thoughts on the Song to the most advanced sisters, who need not have been the eldest. Finally, Abelard could have also realized that Bernard of Clairvaux was composing sermons on the Song, which were to form the cornerstone of a substantial Cistercian literature devoted to this book of the Bible, and an awareness of this other project could have been an incentive rather than a disincentive to trying his own hand at interpretation of the Song. In fact, Abelard cites the Song of Songs repeatedly in The Sermons, even in ones addressed to women.5 In the former of these two sermons, the citation is preceded by a passing remark that may refer to a lost commentary on the Song of Songs.6 But all of these speculations do nothing to remedy one fact: we do not have Abelard's commentary on the Song of Songs, if in fact he ever wrote one.
5. Examples would be Sermons 29, "De sancta Susanna, ad hortationem virginum" (On Holy Susanna, to the Encouragement of Virgins), and 31, "In natali sancti
Stephani, vel caeterorum diaconorum, qui ab apostolis derivati sunt obsequio sanctarum viduarum" (On the Birthday of Saint Stephen, or of Other Deacons), in PL 178:
555A–64A and 569C–73B. Sermon 31 contains an internal address to fratres (brethren) which may indicate that it was earlier addressed to the monks of St. Gildas.
6. The sentence of Sermon 29 in question reads, in PL 178: 555A: "Audistis, charissimae, atque utinam exaudissetis beatam illam sponsae sollicitudinem in Cantico canticorum, ad exhortationem vestram diligenter descriptam" (Dearest ones, you have heard [and if only you have hearkened to it!] that blessed attentiveness of the bride in the Song of Songs, carefully described for your encouragement). On this passage, as well as on other evidence for Abelard's interest in the Song, see De Santis,
"Abelardo interprete del Cantico dei Cantici," 284–94.
dedication to commentary on creation
Whatever the status of Abelard's thinking and writing about Ezekiel and the Song of Songs, the suggestion from Heloise that Abelard explicate the six days of creation was well calculated to pique his appetite for difficulty. It would be an understatement to observe that literature on the hexaemeron preexisted Abelard. To look at only a few of the many examples, the first preserved example of hexaemeral literature was Philo of Alexandria's On the Creation of the Cosmos According to Moses.7 Among the fourth-century attempts to grapple with it were Basil the Great's (about 329–379) Homilies on the Hexaemeron, translated by Eustathius (about 400) from Greek into Latin, and Ambrose of Milan's (about 333–397) Hexaemeron, with both of which Abelard was familiar.8 The exegetic works of Bede (673–735), the authority whom Abelard discusses with care in Letter Eleven, comprehend a substantial Hexaemeron; Abelard knew this text as well.9
Probably unknown to both Heloise and Abelard and written after his commentary was that of Thierry of Chartres (about 1100–about 1155), dated to 1130–1140.10 Though Abelard may not have been acquainted with the commentary in written form, he knew Thierry and is said in an anecdote from the twelfth century to have had Thierry as a teacher.11 The commentary ascribed to Clarembald of Arras, who flourished between 1150 and 1170, is argued to have been written in the late 1160s and thus falls too late to have been a possible influence.12
7. Trans. David T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series 1 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2001).
8. See Basil the Great, Homélies sur l'Hexaéméron, ed. and trans. Stanislas Giet, 2d ed., Sources chrétiennes 26 bis (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1968), and Ambrose, Hexameron, De paradiso, De Cain, De Noe, De Abraham, De Isaac, De bono mortis, ed. Carolus [Karl]
Schenkl, CSEL 32/1 (1896): 3–261.
9. See Bede, Libri quatuor in principium Genesis usque ad nativitatem Isaac et eiectionem Ismahelis adnotationum, ed. C. W. Jones, Opera exegetica 1, CCSL 118A (1967).
10. See Thierry of Chartres, De sex dierum operibus, in Commentaries on Boethius by Thierry of Chartres, ed. Nikolaus M. Häring, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies and Texts 20 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1971), 555–75; on the dating, see 46–47.
11. Mews, "In Search of a Name and Its Significance," 172.
12. Tractatulus super librum Genesis (Little Tractate on the Book Genesis), in Life and Works of Clarembald of Arras, a Twelfth-Century Master of the School of Chartres, ed. Nikolaus
heloise and the nuns of the paraclete But more than any of these other commentaries, the efforts that made the greatest impression on Heloise were those of Augustine, another thinker whom Abelard held in high esteem. Augustine left three different explications of the hexaemeron (to say nothing of books eleven through thirteen of the Confessions!), each of them ostensibly to explain the six days in a literal sense, but all of them containing much that employs allegorical interpretation to arrive at a spiritual meaning.13 No wonder that, according to what Abelard reports, Heloise professed to have trouble following the interpretations ventured by the bishop of Hippo.
In the letter-preface Abelard presupposes a threefold exposition of Scripture, with literal-historical, moral, and allegorical interpretations.14 He proposes to concentrate upon the first mentioned, the expositio historica (literal-historical explication), but he scarcely overlooks the moralitas (moral interpretation) and allegoria (allegorical interpretation).15 Whether deliberately or not, Abelard in his commentary sidesteps the pitfall of seeking global answers to global questions.
Instead, he focuses on one question at a time, isolating the difficulties, presenting alternative clarifications, rejecting some, and corrobM. Häring, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies Studies and Texts 10 (Toronto:
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1965), 226–49 (text) and 20–23 (dating).
13. De Genesi contra Manichaeos, PL 34: 173–220; De Genesi ad litteram liber imperfectus, ed.
Joseph Zycha, CSEL 28/1 (1894): 457–503; De Genesis ad litteram libri XII, ed. Joseph
Zycha, CSEL 28/1: 1–435; and Confessions, ed. James J. O'Donnell, 3 vols. (Oxford,
U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1992).
14. On the development of such exposition, see Henri de Lubac, Exégèse médiévale:
Les quatre sens de l'Ecriture, 4 vols. (Paris: Aubier, 1959–1964); English (partial), Medieval
Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture, vol. 1, trans. Mark Sebanc, and vol. 2, trans. E. M.
Macierowski (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W. B. Eerdmans, 1998–2000). For a treatment of threefold interpretation that was written in the late 1120s at Paris, see Hugh of St.
Victor, Didascalicon de studio legendi 5.2 and 6.3–5, ed. Charles Henry Buttimer, Catholic
University of America Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Latin 10 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University Press, 1939), 95–96 and 113–23; The Didascalicon: A Medieval Guide to the Arts, trans. Jerome Taylor, Records of Civilization 64 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), 120–21 and 135–45.
15. For the fullest study of Abelard's techniques in the commentary, see Eileen F.
Kearney, "Peter Abelard as Biblical Commentator: A Study of the Expositio in Hexaemeron," in Petrus Abaelardus, 199–210.
dedication to commentary on creation
orating others. Not unpredictably, his theological procedures bear the stamp of the quaestio format employed in formal logic, as it was taught in his times (and indeed as he pioneered it).16 Even so, Abelard does not follow here the quaestio format thoroughgoingly, probably because he is writing exegesis for a convent of nuns rather than a treatise on logic for an audience of Parisian masters and students.
Nonetheless, the principles that he set forth as a logician for application to theology in the prologue to the Sic et non come to the fore here too in at least a small way. Thus the invocation of Aristotle and the quotation of Boethius's comment on the Categories that he interjects here in order to explain Augustine are familiar from the prologue.
One attraction of commenting upon the days of creation would have been the opportunities to explore nature and to apply the resources of physics as it was conceived in the twelfth century. These opportunities were part of what elicited a commentary from Thierry of Chartres, who partook of the curiosity about nature and physics that is a hallmark of the so-called Chartrian Neoplatonists. Drawing inspiration from Plato's Timaeus as translated by Calcidius (fourth or fifth century c.e.), Thierry explains the creation after the first day as relying on the operation and interaction of the four elements (in the sequence air, water, fire, and earth). But by and large Abelard's explication holds fast to the verbal analysis typical of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic) rather than venturing deeply into the sciences of the quadrivium (geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy).17
The exegetical format is not so bluntly evident as in the Problemata, but it tends in the same direction. If there is an overarching moral interpretation, it emphasizes the goodness demonstrated by the Holy
Spirit in the creation. In the allegory the stress falls upon the parallels between the six days of creation and the six ages of the world
16. G. R. Evans, Language and Logic of the Bible: The Earlier Middle Ages (Cambridge,
U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 127–28, and Marenbon, Philosophy of Peter
Abelard, 76.
17. For a couple of remarks in this connection, see Jolivet, La théologie d'Abélard,
105–10.
heloise and the nuns of the paraclete (sex aetates mundi). The six ages of the world were conceived of as follows:18
First: from Adam (the first man) to Noah (who constructed the ark at the flood) Second: from Noah to Abraham (the father of all nations)
Third: from Abraham to David Fourth: from David to the Babylonian Captivity Fifth: from the Captivity to the Advent of Jesus Christ
Sixth: from the Advent on through the Present Although Abelard proceeds day by day through the hexaemeron, he devotes much more space to the sixth day than to any of the others.
This disproportion enables him to deal comparatively with the basic natures and traits of men and women, who were created on the sixth day. It also allows him more readily to draw Christological connections. Last but not least, it permits him to align the six ages of the world with the six ages of human life (sex aetates hominis: infantia, pueritia, adolescentia, iuventus, gravitas, senectus), as they had been coordinated ever since Augustine.19
To return to the preface, it takes the form of a letter in which the conventional schema of an opening salutation has been jumbled or at least deferred.20 It opens with a paragraph on the three most
18. These parallels were suggested already by Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus
(On the Catechizing of the Uninstructed) 17.28 and 22.39, ed. J. B. Bauer, CCSL 46 (1969). The fullest information on early sources will be found in Hildegard L. C.
Tristram, Sex aetates mundi: Die Weltzeitalter bei den Angelsachsen und den Iren: Untersuchungen und Texte, Anglistische Forschungen 165 (Heidelberg, Germany: C. Winter, 1985).
19. On the connection of the six ages of the world with the six ages of life, see
J. A. Burrow, The Ages of Man: A Study in Medieval Writing and Thought (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1988), 55–94. On Augustine's De diversis quaestionibus LXXXIII 1.58 (in PL
40: 11–100) in particular, see 80–85 and (for text and English translation) 199–200.
20. The same surprising placement of the salutation occurs in Letter Eight. On the customary placement and content of the greeting, see Carol Dana Lanham, Salutatio Formulas in Latin Letters to 1200: Syntax, Style, and Theory, Münchener Beiträge zur
Mediävistik und Renaissance-Forschung 22 (Munich, Germany: Arbeo-Gesellschaft, 1975).
dedication to commentary on creation
challenging parts of the Bible. After listing the sections, Abelard proceeds to quote passages from two early ecclesiastic writers, Origen and Jerome, that support his contention about the difficulty of Genesis. Origen, who castrated himself so as to be able to preach to women without risk of scandal, was a personage whom Abelard invoked often for various reasons, one of which needs no saying. Jerome, who took a special interest in the education and religious life of women, became a fitting model for Abelard as he became more and more immersed in laying out the life to be led and the devotions to be performed by Heloise and the nuns of the Paraclete. Like Jerome, Abelard had been subjected to rumors because of having demonstrated an attentiveness to religious women that was perceived by some to be unseemly.
The second paragraph finally unveils a salutation, of the sort familiar to those who have read the so-called personal letters between Heloise and Abelard. Two words, "sister Heloise," recur in three other letters from Abelard to her.21 The greeting as a whole plays upon the changed status of their relationship and requests her prayers for him in his moment of need, in this case because he is embarking on a difficult exegetic undertaking. The third paragraph returns to the topic of decoding the hexaemeron. After referring to moral and allegorical/mystical interpretation, Abelard professes a goal of privileging the literal-historical, as Augustine did, but he goes on to quote the Retractationes (Reconsiderations), where the bishop of Hippo offered retrospectively a candidly critical assessment of his accomplishments in the commentary on Genesis. In this passage Abelard draws parallels first between Augustine and Aristotle and then between Augustine and himself.22 In the final paragraph, Abelard contends that if his own interpretative effort founders, Heloise warrants responsibility for having asked him to undertake it.23
21. Letter Three, ed. Muckle, 76; Preface to Book 1 of The Paraclete Hymnal; and Prologue to The Sermons.
22. Beryl Smalley, "Prima clavis sapientiae: Augustine and Abelard," in Fritz Saxl 1890–
1948: A Volume of Memorial Essays from His Friends in England, ed. D. J. Gordon (London:
Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1957), 93–100, at 97.
23. By this quotation Abelard "covers himself with a Pauline variation of the humility topos"; see Ferrante, To the Glory, 60. On the humility topos as a concept in
heloise and the nuns of the paraclete The text is extant in four twelfth-century manuscripts: Avranches,
Bibliothèque municipale, MS 135, fol. 75r–90v (twelfth century, Mont Saint-Michel); Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliotek, MS E don. var. 138 quarto, fol. 9r–16v and 19r–25v; Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 17251, fol. 33v–46r (twelfth century, La Meillerayede-Bretagne, Nantes); and Vatican, Biblioteca apostolica vaticana,
MS Vat. lat. 4214, fol. 1r–30v (twelfth century).24 The critical edition is Expositio in Hexameron, ed. Romig, in Petri Abaelardi opera theologica, vol. 5, ed. Burnett and Romig, CCCM 15 (2004): 1–111, at 3–5, which is followed here.
Dedication Letter There are three sections in the Old Testament that experts in the Holy Scriptures have judged to be very difficult to understand, namely, the beginning of Genesis, according to the literal account itself of God's activity [Genesis 1–2]; the Song of Songs; and the prophecy of Ezekiel, especially in the first vision about animals and wheels [Ezekiel 1] and in the last about the building established on the hill [Ezekiel 40–48].25 For this reason (they say) it has been established among the Hebrews that the explication of those writings is on account of its extreme difficulty to be entrusted only to the ripened insights of elders, as Origen himself recalls in the first homily on the Song of Songs, saying:
They say too that among the Hebrews it is observed no one is allowed to hold this book in his hands except he who has arrived at a full and ripe age. But from them we have received that practice to be maintained, that among them all the Scriptures are handed down by teachers to boys but medieval rhetoric, see above, note 30 to the introduction to the prefaces to the three books of The Paraclete Hymnal.
24. The Avranches manuscript is the closest to Abelard and in fact one of the three scribes may have been the magister himself. See Romig, CCCM 15 (2004): xx– lxx, as well as Buytaert, "Abelard's Expositio," 163–94.
25. Abelard refers to the difficulty of at least one prophecy in Ezekiel in the Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, 202–3; trans. Radice, 8.
dedication to commentary on creation
that four books are kept to the end, that is, the beginning of Genesis in which the creation of the world is described [Genesis 1]; the beginning of the prophet Ezekiel in which a report is given about the cherubim
[Ezekiel 1] as well as the end in which is contained the construction of the temple [Ezekiel 40–48]; and this book of the Song of Songs.26
Hence also that statement of Jerome in the prologue of his commentary on Ezekiel:
I will undertake the prophet Ezekiel, whose difficulty the Hebrew tradition attests. For if a person among them has not reached the age of priestly ministry, that is, the thirtieth year, he is not allowed to read the beginning of Genesis, the Song of Songs, or the beginning and end of this book, that the full time of human experience may bring its supplement to complete wisdom and figurative understanding.27
Thus you demand in entreating and entreat in demanding,28 sister Heloise,29 once dear in the world, now dearest in Christ, that I attend in the explication of these sections all the more zealously as it is apparent that an understanding of them is the more difficult, and I will bring this to fruition especially for you and your spiritual daughters. For this reason I ask you (just as you ask) that because you compel me to this by asking, you obtain fulfillment for me by praying to God. And since, as is often said, we must begin from the head, may your prayers help me at the opening of Genesis the more fully, in proportion as it is evident that its dif26. Origen, In Canticum canticorum, Prologue, in Patrologiae cursus completus: Series Graeca, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne, 161 vols. (Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1857–1866), 13: 62–84, at 63D–
64A.
27. Jerome, Commentarii in Ezechielem, Prologue, ed. François Glorie, CCSL 75 (1964):
3–4, lines 24–30.
28. Abelard himself uses this same wording in the first person in Letter Three:
"Supplicando itaque postulo, postulando supplico." Compare Heloise, in the letter to Abelard that forms the prologue to the Problemata: "supplicando rogamus, rogando supplicamus" ("we ask in entreating, we entreat in asking").
29. Abelard uses the same manner of address elsewhere; compare Letter Three, ed. Muckle, Mediaeval Studies 15 (1953): 76; the first line to The Paraclete Hymnal, Preface to Book 1; and the first line to Letter Sixteen: Prologue to The Sermons.
heloise and the nuns of the paraclete ficulty is greater than the rest, as the very rarity of commentaries testifies.
Indeed, although many men put together many allegorical or moral interpretations of Genesis, among us [Latin Christians] the insightful intellect of most blessed Augustine alone undertook to explicate the literal-historical in this matter.30 He acknowledged this as being so difficult that the things he said there on the basis of opinion rather than by assertion of thought, he brought forth, if you will, by investigating them as matters of doubt rather than demarcating them as certainties. It is as if he heeded that counsel of Aristotle's:
Perhaps (he said) it may be difficult to make confident pronouncements on matters of this sort, unless they have been studied often. Furthermore, it will not be without benefit to waver in judgment about individual points.31
Consequently the aforesaid doctor of the Church said in the second book of his Retractationes [Reconsiderations], as he was about to reconsider his twelve books On Genesis According to the Letter:
30. Bede, Libri quatuor in principium Genesis usque ad nativitatem Isaac, Preface, ed. C. W.
Jones, CCSL 118A (1967): 1, uses the wording "multi multa dixere" ("Many [men] have said many [words]") before singling out Augustine for special acknowledgment.
Compare Thierry of Chartres, ed. Häring, 555.
31. Aristotle, Categoriae vel praedicamenta 1.1–5, trans. Boethius, 8b21–8b24, ed. Laurentius Minio-Paluello, Corpus philosophorum Medii Aevi: Aristoteles Latinus 1/1 (Bruges,
Belgium: Desclée de Brouwer, 1961), 23 = Boethius, In categorias Aristotelis libri IV, 2, in PL 64: 159–294, at 238D.
As can be seen throughout his established oeuvre, Abelard demonstrates a remarkable propensity to reuse the same quotations, and the present passage is a case in point. These two sentences can be found in the Logica "Ingredientibus," ed. Geyer, Peter
Abaelards philosophische Schriften, 2 (1921): 223, where Abelard glosses it, and in the conclusion to the Prologue to the Sic et non, ed. Boyer and McKeon, 103, where he also rephrases the gloss. In the Sic et non, as here, Abelard invokes Aristotle's name without explaining that the passage appears in Boethius's commentary on his translation of Aristotle's Categories. On Abelard's comparison between Augustine and Aristotle here, see Smalley, "Prima clavis," 96–97.
dedication to commentary on creation
In this work more matters have been examined than discovered, and fewer of those which have been discovered have been substantiated. In truth, the remaining matters should be set down in such a way as though they must still be investigated.32
But seeing that the statements of this work also seem obscure to you, to the extent that the very explication of it is regarded as needing to be explicated again, you entreat our opinion too in explicating the beginning of Genesis. In fact, you should recognize how at the instance of your prayers I am now undertaking this explication in such a way that when you see me fail, you may await from me the excuse of the Apostle [Paul]: "I am become foolish: you have compelled me" [2 Corinthians 12.11].33
32. Retractationes 2.24, ed. Almut Mutzenbecher, CCSL 57 (1974): 109, lines 8–11.
The Retractationes was an extremely important text to Abelard, as can be gauged from his mention of it in the final sentence of the Prologue to the Sic et non (p. 104, lines
348–50). This capping mention and the subsequent quotations from the Retractationes in the body of the Sic et non are implicit reminders of the quotation from the same
Augustinian text earlier in the Prologue (pp. 92, line 86–93, line 96), which established the principle of analysis that when analyzing conflicting authorities, the reader must determine if any of them was subsequently retracted by its author.
33. The closing statement from the Bible appears repeatedly in exegesis and also, coincidentally, near the close of two letters by Bernard of Clairvaux, Letter 244.3, in Sancti Bernardi opera, 8 vols. (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1957–1977), vols. 7–8, ed.
Jean Leclercq and Henri Rochais (1974–1977), 8: 135, line 29; and Letter 448, 8: 425, line 10.