Abstract
Holdenried focuses on the fact that frequently medieval predictions across many different genres were repurposed, that is, they were not novel creations but older material recycled into a new context. Central to Holdenried’s approach to such repurposing is to explore the neglected role played by the ‘set ways of understanding time’ (i.e. ‘regimes of temporality’) which had formed in readers’ minds as a result of reading and interpreting scripture in other contexts. Erich Auerbach’s work is pivotal here. He recognised the pervasive cultural influence of techniques of scriptural exegesis. As Holdenried shows (drawing on material from c.1050–1200, including Peter Damian’s letters), Auerbach’s concept of Realprophetie has much to tell us about epistemological experiences with non-scriptural, free-floating prophecy in the medieval world.
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- 1.
The term ‘regime of temporality ’ (or, often, synonymously the term ‘temporal regime’) developed around Francois Hartog’s notion of the ‘regime of historicity’. Hartog uses that phrase in his reflections on how history is experienced, conceived of, and written down in different periods, see Hartog (2015: 8–9 and 106). For further discussion of the term ‘regime of temporality’ , see Jordheim (2014: 498–518); see also n. 3, below.
- 2.
See also Jordheim (2014: 499–501 and 509).
- 3.
This approach also departs from current studies of medieval reworkings of the Tiburtina (and its extensive manuscript transmission), which, although they acknowledge the impact of the liturgy, concentrate not on regimes of temporality but on the role of memory in shaping medieval approaches to the text, see Holdenried (2006: 111–126).
- 4.
Originally published in German in 1938, also reprinted in Auerbach, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur romani schen Philologie (1967): 55–92. In this essay I cite the English translation by Ralph Mannheim (see Auerbach 1984: 61). For “Figura’s” continued importance, see Balke and Engelmeier (2016) and Auerbach (2014), with an introduction by James I. Porter.
- 5.
For an appreciation of Auerbach’s impact, see Lerer (1996).
- 6.
See, for example, Hunt (2008), Munn (1992) (with “Notes on the Future ” on pages 112–116), and Burke (2004). Auerbach’s work is absent, too, from Koselleck’s seminal study of the history of time in which the analysis of language alongside that of philological and hermeneutical pardigms and practices plays a key part, see Koselleck (2004), first published in German as Koselleck, Vergangene Zukunft: Zur Semantik Geschichtli cher Zeiten (1979).
- 7.
Auerbach’s translator, Ralph Manheim, translated the German word Realprophetie as ‘phenomenal prophecy’, a somewhat curious choice. I assume that it is not meant in the sense of ‘remarkable, outstanding’, but is related to the term ‘phenomenon’, that is, meaning ‘fact’ or ‘occurence’ (and perhaps to the philosophical term ‘phenomenological’), see Auerbach (1984: 29–34).
- 8.
See, for example, “per mysterium spiritalis intellectus” and “per spiritalem intellegentiam”, n. 15, below.
- 9.
In this essay I use either the conjoined form typological/allegorical or figural/typological because “in figural interpretation one thing stands for another, since one thing represents and signifies the other, [so] figural interpretation is ‘allegorical’ in the widest sense” (Auerbach 1984: 53–54). However, Auerbach also observes that sometimes typology and allegory can be treated as different, for while typology is anchored in concrete events, allegories are often ethical or mythical interpretations which may not be historical and are not historically anchored in concrete events (whether past , present , or future ).
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
- 13.
See Holdenried (2016).
- 14.
See Ex 12:35–17:2; the 42 rest-stops have their source in Nm 33:3–48. Peter’s exegesis of them relies on Jerome, “Letter 78” (see Peter Damian 2005: 110, n. 32).
- 15.
Translated by Blum, who renders the two very similar phrases spiritalis intellectus and spiritalem intellegentiam by two very different English phrases (‘spiritual understanding’ and ‘allegorical interpretation’). On this point, I agree with the translator because application of spiritalis intelligentia involves allegory ; see van Liere (2014: 114–115). Cf. Reindel (1993: 104–105 [my emphasis]): “[Notandum autem quoniam omnis ille discursus et quicquid illic gestum hystorialiter legitur,] totum in nobis per mysterium spiritalis intellectus impletur. Quod enim tunc visibiliter gestum est, nobis per spiritalem intellegentiam congruit, nostro tempori vetus illud saeculum militavit. Haec enim, ut ait apostolus, ‘in figura contingebant illis’. Nos enim de fornace Aegyptiacae servitutis egredimur, et terram repromissionis ingredi per plurima mansionum loca, hoc est per per diversa virtutum incrementa conamur”.
- 16.
Cf. András in this volume, pp. 71–74.
- 17.
… “haec autem in figura facta sunt nostri ut non simus concupiscentes malorum sicut et illi concupierunt.” This passage had also been noted in Peter’s source: Jerome’s “Letter 78,” see n. 18, below.
- 18.
Cf. Reindel (1993): “Agrediar ergo, frater mi, si tibi onerosum non est, mansionum illarum figuras summatim ac succincte perstringere, et quod ex dictis patrum indagare potuerim, compendiosis verbis breviter annotare, ut querelosus quispiam ex gustu micarum labentium colligat, quam nectareis dapibus pleni ferculi mensa redundat” (p. 104 [my emphasis]). On those who are ignorant of God ’s plan, see n. 19, below. Note that Peter’s source (Jerome, “Letter 78”) makes no mention of such querulous persons, nor of their approach to the Old Testament , so this must be Peter Damian’s observation about his own time, see Jerome, Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Epistulae, ed. Hilberg (1970: ep. 78).
- 19.
Cf. Reindel (1993: 103): “… cum nonnulli divinae rationis ignari frivolum conquerantur atque superfluum, ut in aecclesia legatur istarum descriptio mansionum. Arbitrantur enim haec scire vel legere nil penitus utilitatis afferre, putantes quod rem tantummodo gestam narret hystoria, et hanc cum ipsa tunc vetustate transisse, neque nunc ad nostram aliquatinus notitiam pertinere”.
- 20.
See n. 19, above.
- 21.
Both images (river and ratchet) imply forward motion, but the image of the flowing waters of a river makes it harder to isolate and locate specific moments, i.e., to pinpoint the ‘present’ .
- 22.
Cf. Reindel (1993: 103–104): “Sed si suptiliter ipsa scripturae verba perpendimus, quam extremae dementiae sit hoc dicere, luce clarius invenimus. ... Et quis hoc audeat dicere, immo quis temerario praesumat ore garrire, ut quod Domino iubente conscribitur, nil utilitatis, nulla conferat emolumenta salutis?”.
- 23.
See Peter Damian, cited above, n. 19. The sharp separation of the present from the past which characterises the chronological regime of temporality is often regarded as the defining feature that marks a distinctively ‘modern’ understanding of time; see, for example, Koselleck (2004). For further discussion of the label ‘modern’ in relationship to temporality , see Spiegel (2016) and Jordheim (2014): especially p. 506.
- 24.
- 25.
This reframing took various forms, some of which we can only reconstruct hypothetically because the surviving manuscript evidence is all post-1047, see Holdenried (2014).
- 26.
The Tiburtina’s terminology here also mimics genealogical ways of ordering time, see, for example, Gallois (2007: 110–121).
- 27.
As is all too rarely acknowledged, a future application (i.e. updating of the regnal list) is also rare in the period before 1200, see Holdenried (2006: 20–22 and 41–52).
- 28.
This connection left a significant impact on the text’s manuscript tradition in the form of marginal annotations and amendments to the text, see Holdenried (2006: esp. 111–130).
- 29.
Note that here I only consider the liturgy’s role in transmitting exegetical works and techniques (and their attendant regimes of temporality ). Of course, the liturgy was also itself the subject of exegetical works about the divine office, which thus developed ideas about time. This point lies outside the scope of the present discussion, but see, for example, Czock (2016).
- 30.
This point in time involved, for example, scholars such as Andrew of St. Victor (d. 1175), see van Liere (2014: 130–139).
- 31.
As an example of this, see Fleming (2013: 82).
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Holdenried, A. (2017). The Old Made New: Medieval Repurposing of Prophecies. In: Baumbach, S., Henningsen, L., Oschema, K. (eds) The Fascination with Unknown Time. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66438-5_2
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