D. SYMBOLISM

D. SYMBOLISM

Much more distinctive than any provision of collection or manual for ordinary use of a common fund is the prevalence of symbolism. The “moral” exposition that followed the literal commonly had this direction. For medieval symbolism was not merely a habit of exposition; it was seen as well as heard because it was a habit of conception. The cathedrals still exhibit in sculpture and glass what came in words from their pulpits. The Psalms, especially those recurring in the daily offices, thus conveyed from generation to generation the eternal word of God. For every psalm was the lyric cry of David, or of some other ancient Hebrew, only in the first instance (_litteralis expositio_). It always meant more; and its further meaning (_moralis expositio_), as cumulating progressive experience of God, was more important. It always meant not only David, but every other soul thus answering God, the “poor man” of every time and of every clime, every individual then and there focusing and enlarging by those words his own experience.

So far the “moral” interpretation treats the psalm as an extreme case of literary inspiration, appropriates it as having the universal validity of every lyric that has survived the centuries. A religious classic, more widely and intensely spiritual than any other body of lyrics, the psalter is still only a classic. But medieval interpretation always took a third step. Every psalm meant not only David, and further not only every “poor man” making it his own, but also “the man,” the Lord incarnate to share all humanity and to give men “power to become the sons of God.” Thus the Psalms spanned the centuries, connected the New Testament with the Old indivisibly, and were the voice of man in every age answering God in the Church. The habitual use of the Old Testament, and even of secular history, as prefiguring is here focused in its simplest form.[30] Simplest and commonest instance of symbolism, the interpretation of the Psalms is characteristic. Though not, indeed, peculiar to the middle age, it opens a widespread medieval habit.

The habitual use of the _Song of Songs_ as symbolic of the Christ and his Church reminds us that symbolism is essentially poetic. It was the usual poetic of medieval preaching in interpreting not only the Scriptures, but all human experience. As behind the word lay spiritual meaning, so behind the veil of the senses lay the realities of life. The so-called “otherworldliness” of medieval preaching is no ignoring of physical facts; it is a sustained and consistent call to see through them. What medieval philosophy defined as seeing “in the aspect of eternity” (_sub specie æternitatis_) medieval preaching inculcated as a habit of vision. The habit might, indeed, degenerate, as in that popular manual of the fourteenth century, the _Speculum humanæ salvationis_,[31] into extravagance or minute formalism; but even so it kept some view of history as a providential progress. It might rise, on the other hand, to express the immediate apprehension of the mystic, the vision of spiritual genius. But the distinction of the medieval mystic is rather in degree than in kind. The whole age is characteristically habituated to mysticism. No other poetic vision is equal to Dante’s; but no other form of poetry in his age, whether in verse or in sermon, is commoner than the vision.

Not only to the rapt was the visible world eloquent of the unseen eternal.

Full, indeed, is everything of supernal mysteries, abounding each in its special sweetness if the eye that beholds be but attentive, as of him who knows how to suck honey from the stone and oil from the hardest rock. St. Bernard, _De Laudibus Virginis Matris_, I. 1; PL 183: 56.

In the following sermon of this series St. Bernard refers seriatim to the accepted prefigurations of the Blessed Virgin. She is the perennial antagonist of the serpent (Genesis iii. 15), the _mulier fortis_ of Solomon (Proverbs xxxi. 10), the burning bush (Exodus iii. 2), Aaron’s budding rod (Numbers xvii. 8), Isaiah’s rod from the root of Jesse (xi. 1), the rod that smote the rock (Exodus xvii. 6) and divided the sea (Exodus xiv. 16), Gideon’s fleece (Judges vi. 37-40), the woman who is the Lord’s new creation (Jeremiah xxxi. 22). The prefigurations of this list had an obvious appeal in sermons through being familiar in hymns, in sculpture, in glass. Evidently St. Bernard loved them for their poetry; but he is also convinced of their sanction. He even formulates the theory of symbolic prefiguration.

These words [“To-day ye shall know that the Lord will come”], indeed, have in Holy Writ their [historical] location in place and time; but not incongruously have they been adapted to the vigil of the Lord’s Nativity by mother Church—the Church, I say, she who has with her the counsel and spirit of her Spouse and God.... When, therefore, she changes or shifts words in Holy Writ, her combination (_compositio_) has more weight than the passage in its original place, the more, perhaps, the greater the distance between figure and fact, between light and shadow, between mistress and handmaid. St. Bernard, _In Vigilia Nativitatis Domini_, III. 1; PL 183: 94.

His second sermon for Advent carries out the prefiguration of the rod, or stem (_virga_).[32]

From these passages I think it now manifest what is the stem proceeding from the root of Jesse, and what is the flower on which reposeth the Holy Spirit. For the Virgin Mother of God is the stem, her son is the flower, flower indeed the son of the Virgin, flower white at once and ruddy, the chosen from thousands (Cantic. v. 10), flower that angels desire in their visions, flower at whose fragrance the dead have revival, and, as he himself beareth witness, flower of the field (Cantic. ii. 1), not of the garden. Flowereth the field without human ministry, not by sowing of any one, not upturned by spading, not from without made fertile. So entirely, so the Virgin’s womb hath flowered; so inviolate, unimpaired, and chaste the body of Mary as the pasture of the eternal vigor hath burgeoned its flower, whose is a beauty beyond corruption, whose a glory unfading forever. O Virgin! stem of the highest, to what a summit thou liftest on high thy holiness! even to him that sitteth on the throne, even to the Lord in his majesty. Nor is that a great marvel, since thou has sent so deep the roots of thy meekness. O truly celestial plant, that art precious above all and holy above mankind! O true tree of life, which alone was worthy to bear the fruit of salvation! _De Adventu Domini_, II. 4; PL 183: 42.

The symbolism of his sermon in the Epiphany octave on the marriage at Cana is specifically moralized.

Now, methinks, ye have fathomed to what my words are tending. To-day ye have been hearing the wonder performed at the marriage, beginning indeed of the Lord’s tokens, even as a story sufficiently wonderful, and in significance still richer in gladness. Great indeed was the sign of the heavenly power, that water turned into wine at the Lord’s bidding; but far better that other changing at the right hand of the Highest which in this one is prefigured. We are bidden every one to the spiritual marriage at which of a truth the bridegroom is Christ our Lord. Wherefore we sing in the Psalter: _And he as a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber_ [Psalm xviii. 6]. Spouse indeed are we to him, if this seem not to you incredible, both all together one spouse and every soul by itself a spouse singly. But when can this be conceived of its God by human weakness, that we should be his beloved as a bride is beloved by her bridegroom? Far enough is this bride below her bridegroom in origin, below in her nature, below in her dignity.

Nevertheless for that ancient Æthiop woman the son of the eternal king from far made his advent, and that for his own he might espouse her, feared not even to die for her. Moses, indeed, took to wife an Æthiop woman, but his marriage availed not to change the Æthiop’s color: Christ will present his bride, whom he loved in her baseness and all her foulness, glorious with his own glory, his Church without spot or wrinkle. Aaron may murmur; Miriam (Maria) may murmur, not the new, but the old, not the Lord’s mother, but Moses’ sister; not, I say, our Mary, she who shows her solicitude if some lack perchance is found at the marriage. Ye, therefore, as is meet, amid the murmurs of the priests, amid the murmurs of the synagogue, give your entire devotion to these our common acts of praise and thanksgiving. _Dominica Prima post Octavam Epiphaniæ_, II. 2; PL 183: 158.

Such preaching shows the same preoccupation as the symbolic windows of the cathedrals, their carved capitals, above all the thronged but harmonized groups of their great porches. It is not merely conventional illustration; it is a constant and consistent reminder of the history of mankind as a scheme of redemption.

E. COMPOSITION