Episode 6 Transcripts
Hello and welcome back to the Plutarch Project Podcast. I’m your callipygian host, Joshua Nieubuurt and this is episode 6. Last week’s episode was a brief history on allegory and how it has influenced various societies and cultures throughout history- particularly Christian theology.
Today we will be looking directly how using allegory to understand Biblical scripture was refuted and then quashed by Saint Thomas Aquinas in a small portion of his work, Summa Theologica. After that we will try and show how allegory can expand the interpretations of more abstract scripture by checking out a time when Jesus Christ cursed a fig tree.
So strap yourself into your ab-master-or whatever it is you do while listening to my harmonious voice echo into your soul and let’s go waaay back to 1245CE-ish!
Thomas Aquinas was born in the town of Roccasecca in the Kingdom of Sicily-modern day Italy- sometime between 1244 and 1245 CE. His parents ruled over a small fuedal dominion– basically they owned some land and people would serve them either directly or indirectly in order to live on that land. At an early age his parents placed him in Monte Cassino-don’t get too excited it’s not some den of sin and debauchery deep in the Nevada desert. No it was a monastery and he was placed there as an oblate. Oblates were usually children given to the church as prospective monks.
Most scholars agree that his family was hoping that he would gain some sort of power within the church that would later help their family politically. Little did they know this decision would change the face of Christianity and the humanities forever. Thomas Aquianas would later become a renowned scholar in Paris.
What’s important to know before jumping into this is that he built on prior theologians’ project of using Aristotelian logic and elements of socratic philosophy to support and organize Christian theology as a kind of system. Aquinas wrote two HUGE texts called Summaes, or sums. In these texts he laid out every single issue he could possibly think of in the Christian theology.
He then meticulously answered these questions using newly rediscovered Platonic thought and Aristotelian logic. Aquinas wasn’t the only person doing this. With the rediscovery of ancient texts literate folks across the medieval world were trying their hand at it. What makes Saint Aquinas unique is the scale in which he did it. Eventually-due to the breadth and girth of his work- he was named the official theologian of the Roman Catholic church- a title many folks would still let him have today.
Among all the topics, from the nature of being to proper political rules, that Aquinas laid out in detail, he also touched on language and literature, and how they operated and should be used when applying them to Biblical scripture. Let’s take a gander at Summa Theologica‘s Ninth and tenth articles.
Thomas Aquinas
From Summa Theologica
Ninth Article
In the 9th article Aquinas addresses objections to the use of metaphors in religious texts. Remember that in this text Aquinas laid out all the objections he could think of and then replied to them using logic. We will first take a look at the objections and then look at his replies.
The first objection revolves around the notion that metaphors relate to the low science of poetry and therefore shouldn’t be used in Holy works.
“Poetry in the word of God! How dare thee!”
Another objection Aquinas raised is that Holy Texts strive to make the truth comprehensible and metaphors can only muddle the message’s ability to be understood. A text should be easily understood-especially when the stakes are so high. Why would God allow their message to be mistaken with metaphor when the message could be said in plain and simple terms? Even contemporary Christian society still deals with this problem. The debate of reading the Bible as allegorical or literal is still something hotly debated in churches-particularly in the United States.
Aquinas’ final mentioned objection regards the proximity in which something resides. Proximity should be the deciding factor in how something is described, especially when it is concerning God. If the Bible is God’s word then it is a direct link to God; why make everything confusing by adding extra dimensions to a text made by the creator?
To counter these objections Aquinas uses the following replies. Knowledge is acquired through the senses and it is normal to compare ideas with objects in the reality humans perceive. Do you recall Saussure’s ideas of sign, signifier, and signified in episode 2? This sounds a bit familiar doesn’t it! Therefore objects can be used as both literal and metaphorical to expound the truth to differing levels of understanding for differing levels of keenness.
Allegory and metaphors are in this sense needed and befitting of Holy Texts. Some parts of Holy Texts use metaphors to teach while in other parts the same message is conveyed with less fanciful functions of language. Finally some messages are better conveyed through those who are less noble or are not noble at all. In this way [quote] “men’s minds are better preserved from error” (Aquinas 182). This is important due to the fact no one is quite sure what God is; but it is evident what God is not. Metaphor also hides the truth from those unworthy or unwilling of hearing it.
Tenth Article
Another objection is raised in the tenth article. The objection is that Holy Texts cannot possibly have multiple senses of meanings because this would muddle up the entire message of the text.
By creating confusion-chaos would also be created-causing the message to be lost or destroyed. In this line of thought only a straightforward interpretation can be considered free of fallacy. Yet another objection is based on the [quote] “fourfold division as to history, etiology, analogy, and allegory” (Aquinas 182). These are objected to for the same reasons. Aquinas proposes that parable should also considered as part of the fourfold division.
If you don’t recall the fourfold division we talked about it last podcast: A brief history of allegory. to review: middle age thinkers had the fourfold system of allegory to use when interpreting texts such as the Bible. They used the literal sense and the allegorical sense-which were meant to help view the past. The moral sense to help view the present. And finally, the anagogical sense-to help view the future.
Aquinas’ reply to these it can be said that the fourfold division (excluding parable) can be categorized under one umbrella term-allegorical sense. This is due to God’s ability to use signifiers in words as well as things. Each soty, concept, idea, and word has its own layers, much like the onions we discussed before. Therefore Holy Text can contain multiple senses including-but not limited to- the literal—historical, analogical, parabolic, etiological (meaning the origin or cause of something) and last but not least the allegorical without becoming confusing or examples of paradox.
In short Aquinas basically took the arguments against allegorical understandings of Biblical Texts, balled them up, and threw them out the window. And why wouldn’t he? If God is an all knowing, all seeing, divine being why wouldn’t they use all the tools possible to allow folks to gain the message they wanted them to get? It sounds like a lot of folks weren’t giving a divine being their due credit.
Let’s see how this works now. we’re going to take a look at one of my personal favorite allegories from the New Testament.
The Cursing of Figs: Literally Allegorical
As we mentioned Summa Theologica postulates that Holy texts have both a literal and allegorical dimensions. While going through this story it’s important to keep in the back of your head the idea that Aquinas thought that interpretation should be based primarily on the literal sense because[quote], “nothing necessary to faith is contained under the spiritual sense [allegorical sense] which is not elsewhere put forward by the Scripture in its literal sense” (Aquinas 183). So even though it might be allegorical there should also be some literal message present that mirrors the allegorical message.
We’ll be look at the book of Mark chapter 11 verses 12-26 which gives a great example of how both literal and allegorical interpretations can help to bolster the understanding of a text.
. If you want to read the text I’ve linked it in the transcripts but the tdrl is as follows: Jesus-and keep this in mind historical jesus was not fluffy like quite a few depictions of him potray him to be- As a a former world religions professor of mine once said, “There is no such thing as fluffy Jesus”. so Jesus and his apostles-are traveling to the temple in Jerusalem. Along the way Jesus gets a rabid hunger and decides to eat the figs of a tree he can see off in the distance. Upon arriving at the tree there are plenty of leaves but no figs to be eaten which is no surprise considering the text states,[quote] “for the time of figs was not yet”[unquote] (KJV; Mark 11:13). Jesus unable to eat figs becomes angry and curses the tree so that no one may ever eat its delicious figs again. “Hey, screw you fig tree!” Afterword they arrive at the city of Jerusalem and go to the temple. There non-fluffy Jesus flips over tables, curses the people doing business and scolds people for making the temple, [quote]“a den of thieves”[unquote] (KJV, Mark 11:17). Afterward they depart from Jerusalem and pass by the previously mentioned fig tree. It has died and begun to wither away. After an apostle asks about the tree Jesus gives a speech on the power of prayer.
In a literal sense this passage doesn’t seem to be on point regarding the common conceptions of Jesus Christ. Why would Jesus-the son of god-heck maybe even God himself- curse a lowly fig tree for not having delicious figgies when it wasn’t supposed to have delicious figgies?
Jesus, growing up in the time and location that he did, would indubitably know that his chance of finding figs during the passover season was next to zero. Still non-fluffy Jesus gets angry and curses a fig tree for eternity for not doing what it shouldn’t be doing at that time of the year.
One literal interpretation could be that the fig trees death isn’t about the power of Christ, but rather the power of God to answer a rather silly and unreasonable prayer( Miquel 145). One could surmise that because Jesus got mad at a tree and asked God to curse it, the tree was cursed forever; showing the power of prayer. And in turn this has nothing to do with the Temple scene which it helps to frame.
Another interpretation posited by Ernst Lohmeyer and rephrased by Esther Miquel states, “the reason why the fig tree was destroyed was that it did not alter its natural ways to receive Jesus, remaining fruitless in the face of the coming Messiah” (Miquel 145). So either the tree died from prayer or it died from its inability to recognize the coming Messiah. Both interpretations involve a literal leap of faith to wholeheartedly believe.
Now that there are two literal interpretations in which to base the allegorical we will continue with differing interpretations based on allegory. Scholar J. R. Daniel Kirk states in their work, “Time for Figs, Temple Destruction, and Houses of Prayer in Mark 11:12-15” [in a 2012 edition of The Catholic Biblical Quarterly nonetheless], “a majority of Marcan scholars now agree that the symbolic intent of depicting the temple’s destruction is established by the intercalation of the temple-clearing incident with the cursing of the fig tree” (Kirk 510). Right. In layman’s terms this means that the destruction of the temple is sandwiched between the fig tree incident and temple-clearing incident-good thigns come in threes, right? With this in mind we can surmise that the allegory of the fig tree relates to the cleansing of the temple of its deceitful ways.
Looking back at the same passage as before with this new lens it takes on a rather different meaning. Jesus comes to the fig tree -aka the temple- and realizes that the fig tree isn’t bearing the fruit it should be- the temple isn’t being used as a house of prayer and worship. It does have the façade of the fig tree/temple but has no real sustenance in which to eat-a tree with leaves, but no fruit-so it is a fraud [a den of thieves]. Due to its false appearance and intention of deceit it needs to be destroyed. So Jesus curses it so that no one may ever eat from it again AKA soon the destruction of the temple will commence so that no one can be deceived again. The time of bearing fruit-of the temple being a house of worship and prayer- will come only after the destruction of the first. After which it will be time for the fig tree-the church-to bear fruit AKA spiritual sustenance. Framing it this manner changes the passages denotation allowing for a deeper level of understanding and a greater appreciation to skill in which the author crafted the work.
With use of both the literal and the spiritual sense a greater understanding of the passage can be accomplished. Also, with the aid of the allegorical sense, the ambiguities and out of character odd behavior of Jesus Christ are made more comprehensible than their literal meaning would lead one to believe. As Aquinas noted, using allegory can deepen the understanding of a text reading available. It opens up entire new worlds of thought and ideas to be explored in just about any kind of text-even if it wasn’t intended by the author. So the next time you engage in allegoresis shoot us a message and let us know what kinds of connections you’ve found in a text! Thanks for listening and as always-onward.
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Works Cited
Alighieri, Dante. Il Convivio. The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2010. 186-188. Print.
Alighieri, Dante. The Letter to Can Grande. The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2010. 188-190. Print.
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2010. 181-184. Print.
Augustine. On Christian Teaching. The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2010. 156-162. Print.
Kirk, J.R. Daniel. “Time For Figs, Temple Destruction, And Houses Of Prayer In Mark 11: 12- 25.” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 3 (2012): 509. General OneFile. Web. 25 Jan. 2016.
Miquel, Esther. “The Impatient Jesus And The Fig Tree: Marcan Disguised Discourse Against The Temple.” Biblical Theology Bulletin 45.3 (2015): 144-154. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Jan. 2016.
The Holy Bible, King James Version. Cambridge Edition: 1769; King James Bible Online, 2016.
