Abstract
A large quantity of manuscripts survives from the vast network of Jesuit libraries established across South America, including many examples of a distinctive kind of Latin Jesuit scriptural meditation. Although the social and economic influence of the Jesuits in South America has been well documented, no study has focussed on the literary and theological interest of these scriptural meditations, or the significant extent to which they innovate scriptural reading in response to the spiritual challenges posed by the new missionary contexts. The submitted article offers a close reading of a fascinating example of this innovative exegetical style by examining excerpts from the Canticum Habacuc Illustratum by Lucas Vicente Imperial (Quito, 1642). While bringing to light the Augustinian models that inspire this particular kind of exegetical reception, the text also shows the nuances of Jesuit biblical exegesis and its specific connection with contemporary and practical needs.
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When the Spanish Jesuit Lucas Vicente ImperialFootnote 1 called on himself and on his fellow Jesuit readers to consider what makes it possible to sing a song of praise in a foreign land—‘quomodo cantabimus canticum Domini in terra aliena’ (Psalm 136:4)Footnote 2—he was not only adapting the biblical verse to a new form of literary commentary but also suggesting a new meaning for it.Footnote 3
Vicente was not unique among his contemporaries in stretching the boundaries of biblical exegesis beyond the format of scholastic debate. The biblical commentary occupied an important place in the cultural and literary system of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. It aimed at stimulating a meditational process, revealing itself in a rich variety of literary genres, not only biblical commentaries in the strict sense of the word, but also sermons and sermon collections, and emblem books.Footnote 4 Similarly, European Jesuits in the Americas extended the boundaries of traditional commentaries by producing attractive and moving meditations on Scripture, which are markedly sophisticated in both their literary and their theological character.Footnote 5
Since, however, the relevant archives have not been fully investigated, the few known examples of such efforts have generally been dismissed as isolated attempts at exegesis, written in the wake of the Council of Trent’s (1545–1563) injunctions to produce Catholic biblical scholarship in response to the claims of the Reformers regarding the Holy Scriptures. Edward Ryan described Bellarmine’s De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis, first published in Rome in 1613, as a mere index of the ecclesiastical life of the preceding centuries, while Reformation scholars tend to confine examples of Jesuit commentary such as a Cornelius a Lapide’s Commentarii in Sacram Scripturam (1627) to the immediate and sporadic Catholic reaction following the injunctions of the Council of Trent.Footnote 6 This verdict, however, underestimates both the number of these texts and their literary and cultural significance. Conventionally classified as commentaries, they are, in practice, a series of linked meditations, written in an Augustinian style, which make a concerted attempt to revive the meaning of the scriptural passages for the creation of new rhetorical and exegetical messages. While there has been growing interest in the social and cultural interactions between Jesuits and their missionary contexts,Footnote 7 there is much more to say about these Jesuit literary activities, especially the ones produced overseas.
The present article offers a close reading of the prologue to one of these recovered texts, with the aim of shedding new light on the study of Jesuit biblical and patristic exegesis in the colonial context. Despite its ties to the broader exegetical and meditative tradition that had been flourishing in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, Vicente sought to provide the basis for a new exegetical oeuvre, one that was no longer focussed on dogmatic issues but on making the scriptural reading meaningful to the Jesuit experience of faith in an ‘unfamiliar land’. Using Habakkuk as a source of imagery, Vicente’s text transforms the prophet’s song of praise (3:1-19) into his own act of thanksgiving for his renewed encounter with God in the midst of an unfamiliar land. The textual parallel evoked between Habakkuk’s song of praise and Vicente’s meditation on the necessity of prayer and the educational purpose of spiritual devotion clarifies the ‘conversational’ nature of the Canticum, reinforced by the incorporation of the Psalmist’s verse. The question of how it is possible to sing a song of praise in a foreign land represents the writer’s poetic manifesto, as he invites himself and the reader to see whether the verse can lead to answers that are contemporary and relevant, as claimed in the biblical and patristic traditions: ‘Sacred writers are made rich by the many fleeces of this canticle’.Footnote 8 This exegetical model, which transforms the biblical text into a typological narrative capable of creating a new, and yet not arbitrary, biblical meaning, adds a novel facet to the commentary genre and demonstrates the development of Jesuit exegetical scholarship beyond its initial reactionary character.Footnote 9
Lucas Vicente Imperial: A Forgotten Prophet of a New Israel
The story of Lucas Vicente Imperial (1585–1642) and his neglected work, Canticum Habacuc illustratum (1630), begins in 1612 when he embarked on a long journey from Seville to the shores of Nueva Granada.Footnote 10 There he became a professor at the Jesuit University of San Gregorio of Quito—a colonial institution founded in 1594 and forcibly closed down in 1769—where he wrote his Canticum, a scriptural meditation on the Book of Habakkuk.Footnote 11
The manuscript is held at the Jesuit Roman Archive (ARSI) and is recorded in a catalogue dedicated to Jesuit literary works which survived the suppression of the order in 1767,Footnote 12 when many libraries were sacked, and the items dispersed.Footnote 13
The reconstruction of the flourishing context of seventeenth-century Quito and its university provides a window onto the life of this otherwise unknown Jesuit writer and, more broadly, onto the development of Neo-Latin traditions in the New World.Footnote 14 When the Spanish king, Philip IV (r. 1621–1665), granted the title of ‘University of San Gregorio’ to the ‘Colegio Máximo’ of Quito in 1622, it became one of the very few Jesuit colleges to obtain this title and to be able to confer degrees at all levels, including the doctorate.Footnote 15 Modern Ecuadorian sources, as well as the expulsion inventories of the University of San Gregorio, show that scholars coming from the most renowned European educational institutions contributed to the creation of an impressive university library,Footnote 16 equipped with imported volumes along with local works. The inventories compiled in 1767 account for 804 volumes. Among the books listed are Augustine’s Opera omnia, Bibliotheca Sanctorum Patrum (a collection of patristic sources in vogue during the European Renaissance), Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae and a conspicuous number of Jesuit work on biblical and patristic sources such as Cornelius a Lapide’s commentaries In Sacram Scripturam, Didacus de Avedaño’s Epithalamium and Franciscus Ribera’s Psalms. Also mentioned is a certain ‘Aristizabal Habacuc Predicador’, a pseudonym for Vicente, probably invented after he disappeared from the society’s catalogues in 1638.Footnote 17
Although studies of Jesuit colonial history have proliferated in recent years,Footnote 18 very few have delved into the intellectual and literary traditions that informed Jesuit writing, especially in its relation to biblical and patristic exegesis.Footnote 19 One exception is Dominique Bertrand’s attempt to expand the list of Jesuit names and patristic works to reveal some of the society’s literary tendencies, exegetical modes and approaches to the Church Fathers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Bertrand attests to a revived interest among Jesuits for the Latin Church Fathers and, in particular, for literary genres such as martyrologies, lives of saints (especially Jerome and Ambrose), Augustine’s sermons and leading figures in the monastic tradition. The increasing attention to Latin texts went beyond the educational framework of the Ratio studiorum and suggests a wider literary and exegetical engagement which was not confined to the role of Jesuits as expert schoolmasters.Footnote 20 While representing an important step towards an in-depth analysis of Jesuit literary traditions and works, Bertrand’s seminal work has not yet been properly developed.
The majority of known works connected to Jesuit colonial missions are catechisms, dictionaries and preaching manuals, which were produced by Peruvian Jesuits to assist them in their encounter with the native population. José de Acosta (1539–1600), superior of the Jesuits in Lima, was the first Jesuit missionary to produce a preaching manual in Latin: De procuranda Indorum salute (‘How to Bring about the Salvation of the Indians’, 1588), based on direct observation of the indigenous population, as well as on numerous catechisms in Spanish, Quechua and Aymara. The example set by Acosta in promoting Christian rhetoric as the primary form of catechism for the instruction of the indigenous population was followed by an entire generation of early seventeenth-century Peruvian Jesuits such as Luis de Valdivia (Doctrina Christiana y catecismo en lengua allentiac, 1607), Diego González Holguín (Gramatica y arte general, 1607), Luis Bertonio (Arte de la lengua aymara, 1612; Confesionario muy copioso en dos lenguas, 1612); Diego de Torres (Arte y vocabulario en la lengua general del Peru, 1614) and José de Arriaga (Rhetoris Christiani partes septem, 1619). This tradition established a close connection between rhetoric and catechisms and transposed rhetorical ideals into the realm of linguistic translations. Jesuits thus became expert linguists, who learned indigenous idioms and produced several catechisms and compendiums suited to a wide variety of readers. But what else did the Jesuits produce? As Andrew Laird writes:
While humanist Latin learning had defined the European Renaissance by shaping or challenging structures of political and religious authority, Latin was mainly the language of scripture, liturgy, and the Roman Catholic Church in the New World, where it did not serve statesman and aristocrats, but the religious orders and the newly founded universities.Footnote 21
The expanding nature of Latin,Footnote 22 along with the circulation of Neo-Latin literature in the New World, led to the creation of centres of learning in which new exegetical works were produced and became the expression of a specific missionary legacy. Vicente’s Canticum was conceived in this context and represents a valuable example of the literary and scholarly interest of this corpus of texts.
Canticum Habacuc illustratum
Vicente’s Canticum Habacuc illustratum is contained in a manuscript of 357 folios and is divided into seven tractatus (tractates) of varying length. Its original source, the Book of Habakkuk, had a long reception history related to the fact that nothing is known about Habakkuk as a historical character, and nowhere else is he mentioned in the Old Testament.Footnote 23 Scholars have reached different conclusions about Habakkuk’s name and dates.Footnote 24 The prophet often speaks of an imminent Babylonian invasion (Habakkuk 1:6; 2:1; 3:16)—an event that occurred on a smaller scale in 605 BC before the destruction of Judah’s capital city, Jerusalem, in 586 BC. Therefore, Habakkuk likely prophesied in the first five years of Jehoiakim’s reign (609–598 BC), and his prophecy was directed to a world which, through the eyes of God’s people, must have seemed on the edge of disaster. In this sense, the book continues the biblical tradition of protesting to God in the name of justice and mercy (Genesis 18:23–33; Psalm 44:24–6; Job 1–42),Footnote 25 while most biblical and early Christian commentaries focussed primarily on the prophet’s affirmation of the primacy of faith over tribulation (Habakkuk 2:4).Footnote 26
By contrast, Vicente’s work draws for the most part on Habakkuk 3:1–4, the last part of the book, in which the prophet articulates his prayer and doxology after receiving God’s prophecies on the imminent liberation of Judah from oppression and the threat of destructive invasions. In this sense, the parallelism between Vicente and Habakkuk is not so much in the continuation of the biblical protest against the lateness of God’s intervention as in the act of thanksgiving offered by the two prophets for being liberated from anxiety.
In terms of structure, the source closest to Vicente’s work is Jerome’s commentary on the Book of Habakkuk.Footnote 27 Unlike this traditional scriptural commentary, however, which offers a brief remark on each biblical verse and focuses on grammatical and syntactical points, Vicente’s text is arranged in two sections. The first concentrates on the significance of the name of the Prophet Habakkuk and on the subject (titulus) of the canticum. These matters, which get only a preliminary mention in Jerome’s commentary,Footnote 28 are the subject of Vicente’s first three tractates (or meditations). The second part of his work, from the fourth to the seventh tractate, is supposedly dedicated to commenting on some passages of the biblical text, following the model of Jerome. Unlike Jerome, however, Vicente concentrates solely on the first four verses of Habakkuk’s prayer, as they appear in Chapter 3 of the original text.
Dedication
In the opening folios of the manuscript, there is some correspondence between Vicente and several regional bishops, which confirms the circulation of this work across Nueva Granada and its network of intellectuals. The first letter is from the former bishop of Quito, Francisco de Sotomayor (1623–1628), at the time archbishop of La Plata, who praises Vicente’s ‘epistola’ as a literary bridge between the foreign lands of the new territory and the European identity of the missionaries.Footnote 29 Next, the bishop of Popayán, Diego Montoya Mendoza (1633–1637), testifies that Vicente’s fame has reached as far as the northern region of Cauca—present-day Colombia—and describes his work as among the most prodigious of literary enterprises.Footnote 30 There is also a letter from Antonius Ramon (c. 1603–c. 1675),Footnote 31 a professor of sacred theology and classmate of Vicente in Barcelona and Bogotá, who writes in praise of his work and defends it from any criticism concerning his bold choice to go beyond the authority of the Church Fathers in interpreting Sacred Scriptures. Drawing from classical authors such as Ausonius, Seneca, Homer and Apuleius, Ramon seeks to distinguish Vicente’s achievement from that of his famous predecessors and models. Even though Vicente competes with them in terms of literary ingenium, he nonetheless refuses to take pride in his scholarly achievement, attributing the glory to his faith—a faith that surrenders human expertise to the service of ‘that ingenious reverence for God’ (‘ea ingeniosa religio’) which ‘may transcend the dust of time’ (‘transcendat pulveris annos’).Footnote 32Vicente’s achievement should be regarded as an attempt, not to undermine patristic authority, but rather to engage with it and prove its everlasting resonance for humanity’s spiritual quest.
Prologue
Vicente’s work begins with a prologue, which contains his poetic declaration of the compelling reasons that led him to write such a monumental piece. My analysis focuses on this programmatic prologue and on one of the initial meditations.Footnote 33
After dedicating his efforts to the readers of the work— ‘We give the first fruits most abundantly to you, the reader of our nocturnal vigils, with greater fruits to be given in the future’Footnote 34—Vicente seeks to locate his enterprise, the expounding of the Habakkuk’s song, in the context of his new land:
These are the things we have laboured over among white mountains and bright torches. For Quito is a city situated among freezing mountains and rocks which emit flames.Footnote 35
By invoking Psalm 136:4, he emphatically asks his Quiteñan readers what would make it possible for him to ‘sing a song of praise in a foreign land’.Footnote 36 With this question, Vicente introduces the meaning of his ‘commentary’. The verse from the Psalm points to the challenge faced by this Jesuit as he is called to ‘sing a song of praise’, that is, to renew his profession of faith in God and his Church ‘in a foreign land’, a land in which this tradition of faith was not part of the cultural or historical background. The ‘foreign land’ is primarily identifiable with the geographical features of the Quiteñan Province where Vicente was living at the time, described in terms of ‘freezing mountains’ and ‘rocks which emit flames’; however, it also points to the perception of a different spiritual reality presented by his new life in Quito, where Vicente is called to lead his people to a renewal of faith in God in a similar fashion to the biblical prophet Habakkuk (3:1–19). Both authors are asked to proclaim their faith in God’s promises while in a condition of spiritual anxiety. This parallelism immediately emphasizes the relationship between the specificity of Vicente’s local history and the universality of the scriptural message to which he is appealing. As he writes: ‘for the living faithful, the whole world is a homeland’, because whoever immerses himself in the treasures of the biblical text will discover how many riches are implicitly offered by the presence of the living God who abides in it.Footnote 37
The second paragraph of the prologue expands on Vicente’s fundamental connection to the preceding tradition of scriptural exegesis. Recalling a passage from John Chrysostom,Footnote 38 he emphasizes the need for appropriate means to navigate the vast sea of Scripture:
But who could plough such a deep sea? What very expert diver would be able to extract such splendid pearls from this sea? Indeed, as the golden mouth of Chrysostom says in Hom[ilia] 23 in Acta, Sacred Scripture is a bottomless pit of questions.Footnote 39
Scripture—says Chrysostom in the full passage—will generate endless questions for the reader and not everyone can aspire to reach its depths. In Vicente’s words, the ‘heavenly pearls are hidden from those who are proud’.Footnote 40 The nature of Scripture allows only a special kind of diver to extract new meaning from it. These divers must be aware that only God’s self-revelation act is able to provide faithful guidance for the ‘fishermen’ of pearls.
Turning again to the biblical text as a reference for meaning, Vicente reports Bernard of Clairvaux’s exegesis of Genesis 28:12–13.Footnote 41
Pertinent to this point are the words of St Bernard about the stages of humility, as he interprets the ladder of Jacob and God leaning on the ladder. For what else does it tell us that the Lord appeared as leaning from above on the ladder, which is shown to be an allegory for Jacob’s humility, if not that knowledge of truth is reached at the highest pinnacle of humility? And so, armed with these virtues, I hope to approach such a sea of wealth.Footnote 42
While asleep, Jacob dreamed of a ladder that connected heaven and earth. On this ladder, the angels of God were ascending and descending. Then, the Lord appeared and promised the land on which Jacob was lying to him and his descendants. Bernard sees the ladder as an allegory of the stages of humility required to ascend to heavenly wisdom; and yet he recognizes that humility is insufficient unless God leans towards the ladder. ‘Knowledge of the truth is only reached at the highest peak of humility’, writes Bernard, and this peak coincides with the tangible presence of God, who makes himself available to the meek and the humble by descending from the same ladder which humanity strove to climb.Footnote 43 According to this example, the authority of the apostolic tradition of scriptural exegesis is not simply to be found in its literary or rhetorical value, but specifically in the tradition of faith, which guarantees the meekness and humility necessary for the enterprise.Footnote 44 Along these lines, Vicente advocates a close fellowship between the reader of Scripture and those who preceded him in the faith, that is, the most sacred doctors. These scholars have already successfully and comprehensively expounded the meaning of Scripture, and their exegetical awareness of its vastness prevented the biblical text from suffering any literary, historical or religious reduction.
Vicente promises his readers that he will adopt a common language and a plain style (‘lingua vulgari, stylo plano’) in his meditation on the canticum, one which is suited to the investigation of Sacred Scriptures.Footnote 45 Biblical exegesis, says Vicente, should be an act that does not primarily seek rhetorical adornments and embellishments, but rather focuses on ‘eruditio et simplicitas veritatis’, learning and the simple science of truth.Footnote 46 He rejects Aristotle’s type of argumentation, conceived purely as means of persuasion (‘non decet Aristotelis argumenta conquirere’). He also discards both Ciceronian rhetoric (‘neque ex flumine Tullianae eloquentiae ducendus est rivulus’), and Quintilian’s ornaments (‘neque aures Quintiliani flosculis’), when these are intended as pure oratorical embellishments. Instead, he proposes a new kind of language, one through which ‘not the empty ornaments of this world, but the salutary benefits of real things may be praised’.Footnote 47
After establishing the appropriate means for navigating the vast sea of Scripture—a suitable style and a close fellowship with the apostolic tradition—Vicente proceeds to disregard any criticism concerning the redundancy of his work. While it is true that many sacred doctors have already expounded the canticle of Habakkuk, he says, their numerous contributions can never exhaust the inexhaustible meaning of the Scriptures. Vicente presents the theme of ‘Christ the Lamb hidden in Scriptures’ as the rationale for a renewed investigation of the biblical text.Footnote 48 Borrowing from a sermon of Abbot Gilbert of Hoyland for his comments on Isaiah 53:8, Vicente affirms that ‘ours is not a Lamb that is satisfied with one single shearing but can be shorn numerous times. The salutary fleece is the mystical sense of his sacred love. Jesus overflows with such love: he can be laid bare, he cannot be plundered’.Footnote 49 This passage from Gilbert asserts the unique nature of Scripture, by which it is the biblical text itself that makes sacred writers rich.Footnote 50 By stressing this particular nature of Scripture,Footnote 51 Vicente evokes the salvific meaning of the biblical events as relevant to his own contemporary situation. Here also are the fleeces that collect divine dew and need to be squeezed in order for humanity to make progress on the journey of faith.
Vicente concludes his prologue by taking on Habakkuk’s own task, as he offers his commentary on instilling the love of God in people’s hearts: ‘I offer [my biblical commentary] in order to mould people’s morals and to excite divine love in them, so that divine law, torn apart for so long—to use the prophetic words of Habakkuk—may be sown back together’.Footnote 52 This final exhortation indicates the moral purpose which Vicente ascribes to his work as a biblical exegetist and to the reception of the contemporary modes of preaching, thus completing the transformation of his ‘commentary’ into a proper sermon. His pastoral care transforms the commentary into a rhetorical meditation through which we can envision how he implores his readers to consider the power of Scripture beyond its time and place.
Vicente and Augustine
After the introductory chapter, Vicente provides concrete examples of this kind of scriptural meditation, which adapts the reading of the biblical text to serve a new practice of catechesis. The ‘Tractatus secundus—De titulo cantici—Oratio Habacuc pro ignorantiis’, which occupies folios 20r–57v of his manuscript, provides a good example of the Augustinian style of scriptural exegesis announced in the prologue.
In these folios, Vicente offers his interpretation of the causes that prompted Habakkuk’s prayer (praecatio). The exposition seems to proceed according to the traditional scheme of Origen by which the litteralis sensus is first explored and then is followed by the moral and allegorical sensus. A closer look at the treatise, however, reveals that the exposition of the literal sense— ‘de titulo cantici’—is only introductory (fol. 20r–v) and is followed by a series of meditations on the character of Habakkuk’s prayer—‘de oratione et eius dignitate’ (fols 20v–57v)—each one anticipated by a title or lemma.Footnote 53 This configuration distances Vicente’s text from its immediate Latin source, Jerome’s commentary on the minor prophets,Footnote 54 where the primary scope is the philological interpretation of the biblical text, and assimilates it to the catechetical work of Augustine on the instruction of neophytes in the faith. In a similar fashion to Augustine’s De catechizandis rudibus, each sermon addresses a group of inquirers and takes the form of a specific genre of instruction—the first catechesis.Footnote 55
In his treatise, Augustine focuses primarily on the scriptural text as the most vivid source for creating an attractive imagery able to draw people close to the Christian faith. Therefore, the preacher’s discourse should not be concerned with the pleasure of the speaker, but instead with the profit of the hearers.Footnote 56 Christian rhetoric should flow as an expression of the extraordinary mystery contained in the scriptural message, whereby God reveals himself to humanity. It is the visible presence of God, made real by his incarnation, which attracts hearts before the teaching of his doctrine even begins.Footnote 57 Thus, the aim of instruction becomes, for Augustine, the possibility of encountering the reasons of his own faith through the neophyte. His rhetoric is adapted to the hearer, since it is the communion between educators and newcomers that constitutes the goal of catechesis.Footnote 58 Vicente builds his meditation on similar grounds, further developing the genre of the first catechesis introduced by Augustine.
In his first sermon— ‘De oratione et eius dignitate’—Vicente starts off by examining, according to the literal sense, the major interpretations on the significance of Habakkuk’s prayer. He groups these into five main explanations of ‘the things which are not known’ (‘pro ignorantiis’).Footnote 59 The Greek scholars of the Septuagint saw Habakkuk’s ignorance as the result of his error (‘ignorantia aut error’) in mistrusting God, which led him to make amends by producing a prayer, while others regarded his ignorance as the result of a free decision to commit a fault (‘ignorantia pro voluntariis aut pro his qui sponte delinquunt’); still others interpreted it as a confession in order to obtain God’s benefits (‘possumus vertere oratio[nem] Habacuc cum confessionibus, qua confitetur Domino pro beneficiis praestitis’); finally, some considered Habakkuk’s prayer as a gesture of penance for worldly worries (‘oratio Habacuc pro occupationibus’) or an act of thanksgiving in response to God’s providence (‘oratio Habacuc pro oblectationibus vel delitiis’).Footnote 60
Besides the major interpretations in vogue among early biblical scholars, Vicente cites the name of several contemporary Jesuits who also undertook the task of interpreting Habakkuk’s song of prayer:
Many scholars have commented on the subject (titulus) of this canticle, among whom not the last to be forgotten are fathers Cornelius, Ribera and Castro,Footnote 61 who discussed it extensively and at length; likewise Psalm 79 is crowned with this subject. Besides, one must look at Chrysostom, Agellius and Jean de Lorini,Footnote 62 who have commented on the things which are not known in a very learned manner.Footnote 63
At this point, with a captatio benevolentiae, Vicente emphatically interrogates himself and the readers as to whether it is reasonable to include his own exegesis among such a crowd of fine interpreters:
What therefore can be done in such a vast forest of interpreters? Sprung from the very fertile root of the Hebrew word?Footnote 64
He finds the reason for his enterprise in his commitment to deploying earlier exegetical traditions as instruments for enlarging the meaning of the moral and allegorical sense (‘morale et allegoricum’) of the prayer in order to attain a new layer of meaning related to those ‘things which are not known’.
Each writer exceeds in expounding his own exegetical sense. And that is why we are going to examine the moral and allegorical senses, so that the full light of divine wisdom may emerge in our minds and lead us away from that ignorance.Footnote 65
Vicente thus moves on to the second level of his inquiry, leaving behind literal analyses to concentrate on allegorical and moral significations. Even at this level, there is no unanimous opinion as to the interpretation of the character of Habakkuk’s prayer. Some interpreters, mostly early Church Fathers, stressed the importance of prayer as a rigorous practice that should precede any other human request or activity:
A difficulty arises for us: what is to be considered first, the dignity of prayer or the time of prayer? Ambrose, Chrysostom, Cornelius and others believe time should be considered first of all, that is, before everything, indeed, at dawn, the time when prayer is the most pleasing to God. This is also what the royal prophet [David] professes in Psalm 87.14: ‘I cried out to you, o Lord, and in the morning my prayer will reach you.’Footnote 66
In this light, Habakkuk’s prayer is interpreted according to his need to implore God for mercy after his short-sighted lamentations about divine lateness. This interpretation is supported by the Benedictine tradition of prayer, in which the morning is identified with the time chosen by God to encounter his faithful.Footnote 67 Thus, time becomes the physical space that provides humanity with a place for its encounter with the divine, while prayer is the means through which this encounter is made possible:
The old rule assigned prayer to morning and evening times, thus allocating these times to the performance of sacred duties. To them [David and the French Benedictine Gilbert Génébrard], the morning time appears particularly appropriate for prayer, because at that hour men are more focused and less burdened with human affairs. This is what Psalm 87:14 says, for which Jerome translates from Hebrew: ‘In the morning I will be before you and will contemplate you.’Footnote 68
Other exegetes, however, attributed the value of prayer to its quality, thus establishing ‘studium et cura’ (‘zeal and care’) as the primary features of spiritual devotion. This interpretation relies on Matthew 6:33: ‘Strive first for the kingdom of God and all these things will be given to you as well’.Footnote 69 This is the meaning of prayer which is mostly accepted by medieval authors such as Anselm and Thomas Aquinas, who maintained that ‘among all the things necessary to the Christian life, the most important is prayer, since it is the antidote against the danger of sin, and also for the perfection in virtue’.Footnote 70
To make sense of such differences, Vicente decides to look back at these exegetical traditions by shifting his attention from the literal to their mystical and allegorical meaning. The reason why Habakkuk decided to end his scriptural text with a prayer lies, according to Vicente, in the very nature of his prophetical enterprise. After his lamentations and God’s merciful response,Footnote 71 Habakkuk is reminded by a vision to ask for forgiveness because of his distrust in God’s saving power.Footnote 72 Habakkuk thus realizes the lowliness of his human nature and prays for God’s mercy. Vicente sees in Habakkuk’s actions the recognition of the value of prayer as the essential ‘tool’ of any faithful individual who is aware of living a life marked by original sin. Citing Augustine, he concludes that ‘for daily and short-term sins, without which life is not led, daily prayer suffices for the faithful Christian’.Footnote 73 Habakkuk’s decision to end his work with a prayer prefigures the understanding of the value of prayer found in the imitatio Christi. In his redemptive work, Christ began and ended with a prayer.
The Lord himself used this method. For the marvellous work of redemption began with a prayer and ended with a prayer; in the Garden [of Gethsemane], [Christ] prayed to the Father, and while on the cross, he commended his spirit to the Father, by saying: ‘Father, in your hands I commend my spirit’ [Luke 23:46]. Thus, he signalled that prayer must be the beginning and the end.Footnote 74
Regardless of its time or quality, prayer is the intelligible gateway through which we can imitate Christ’s own surrender, by which he procured mankind’s salvation. In the same fashion, Gregory of Nazianzus confirms that prayer intended as an act of surrender to God results in the formation of a new person, one who lives for Christ.Footnote 75 It is this new person whom Vicente is interested in portraying for the audience of his meditation on prayer. Vicente’s meditation becomes a speech-act by which Habakkuk’s task of reconciling himself with God becomes an invitation for both author and readers to reconfigure their Christian identity into a new context.
Conclusion
Vicente’s text is based on the attempt to expand the significance of Habakkuk’s prayer (3:1–9) and doxology and connect it to his own quest to find God far from his native soil, enabling him to sing a song of praise in a spiritually foreign land. Vicente identifies the meaning of his commentary in its ‘conversational’ engagement with the biblical text and its exegetical tradition: on the one hand, this dialogue extends the validity of the scriptural message beyond the literal and historical confinement of the biblical text, while, on the other, it challenges the interpreter to articulate the biblical meaning in light of a new historical, social and cultural context in which the literal meaning of a text such as the Book of Habakkuk reveals its contemporary historical relevance. This two-tiered exegetical process, which receives the biblical text and turns it into a relevant tool of knowledge, makes Vicente’s work one of the finest examples of Jesuit scriptural interpretation from the colonial world. He not only resumes the tradition of the biblical commentary and expands it beyond the boundaries of a religious literary genre, but also transforms its character into a typological narrative, capable of creating a new, and yet not arbitrary, biblical meaning.Footnote 76
The choice of Habakkuk suddenly becomes fitting, as it suggests a parallel between the prophet and Vicente, between the people of Israel on the verge of despair and this Jesuit in a foreign land. In this way, Vicente develops traditional exegetical notions—the need for humility and God’s help in finding the ‘pearls’ hidden in the Bible; an exegesis based on the time-honoured distinction between literal, allegorical, tropological and analogical senses; the frequent use of established authors, especially of the Church Fathers, in elucidating the meaning of the biblical text; the stress on a simple, plain style which shuns rhetorical ornamentation—to produce an exegetical work which revives the spirit of the biblical source and adapts it to the challenges of his new missionary context.
Finally, this paper is intended to serve as a stimulus and orientation for further studies of this and other meditations. Beyond his literary and historical interest, Vicente’s canticum also reveals convergences with other meditation-style exegeses of Scriptures produced by Jesuits across South America.Footnote 77 Furthermore, Jesuit rhetoric reinforced the use of Scripture and the Church’s exegetical tradition in the creation of meditation practices which went beyond strictly Counter-Reformation concerns. Thus, the production of Catholic biblical scholarship transcended its original scope of opposing Protestant biblical writings. Lastly, Jesuit rhetoric gave birth to styles and genres which survived the order’s suppression in 1767 and found new life in the production of feminine rhetorical and ascetic writings.Footnote 78
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Not Applicable.
Notes
I adopt here the Spanish form of his name, as it appears in C. E. O’Neill and J. M. Domínguez, Diccionario histórico de la Compañía de Jesús: biográfico-temático, Madrid, 2001, p. 1188, who list him among the Jesuits belonging to the first generation of Spanish biblical scholars. This is the only modern inventory in which his name is found. He is not included in the Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, ed. C. Sommervogel, I, Paris, 1890, pp. 889–950, was the first monumental work listing all the Jesuits and their works.
This verse of the Psalm is incorporated in the first few lines of Vicente’s prologue to emphasize the conversational nature of the Canticum, as the author prepares to engage with the biblical source (Habakkuk 3:1–9) and to question his capacity to create a new meaning, i.e. to sing a song of praise in his own foreign land. While the term ‘aliena’ in Psalm 136:4 refers to Babylon, Vicente’s ‘terra aliena’ refers both to the unfamiliar land of Quito and to the condition of spiritual ‘exile’ that manifests itself whenever a person, even a missionary, is unable to experience faith at close hand. It is the possibility of singing a song of praise in a foreign land, i.e. of giving praise for the renewed encounter with Christ in an unfamiliar land, which transforms the whole world into one’s homeland: ‘totus mundus fideli patria est’ (MS Opp. NN. 279, fol 5r).
See Rome, Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu [henceforth ARSI], MS Opp. NN. 279: ‘Imperiali Vincenzio Lucas, S.I., Canticum Habacuc illustratum. Auctore Imperiali V.L., prof.re in Academia Gregoriana Quitensi in Regno Peruano. Plures epistolae. Tractatus sequentes: 1. De significatione nominis Habacuc, fols 8–16; 2. De titulo Cantici. Oratio pro ignorantiis, fols 20–139; 3. Variae lectiones, fols 141–357’.
See, e.g. M. Sluhovsky, Becoming a New Self. Practices of Belief in Early Modern Catholicism, Chicago, 2017; and M. Föcking, Rime sacre und die Genese des barocken Stils, Stuttgart, 1994, pp. 15–52.
See, e.g. Francisco de Oviedo, De Iosepho Patriarca, Lima, 1627; Diego de Avendaño’s Epithalamium Christi et Sacrae Sponsae, published in Paris but written in Peru, 1653; Antonio Vieira, Aprovechar deleytando: una nueva idea de pulpito Christiano-politica, written in Brazil and published in Valencia, 1660.
E. A. Ryan, Historical Scholarship of Saint Robert Bellarmine, New York, 1936; B. Gordon and M. McLean, Shaping the Bible in the Reformation, Leiden, 2012.
See Jesuit Distinctiveness: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Ways of Proceeding within the Society of Jesus, ed. R. A. Maryks, Leiden, 2016.
Rome, ARSI, MS Opp. NN. 279 (n. 3 above), fol. 5r: ‘Multis huius cantici velleribus ditati sunt sacri scriptores’.
In the entry ‘biblia sagrada’, in O’Neill and Domínguez, Diccionario histórico (n. 1 above), p. 1188, there is a section entitled ‘La Edad de Oro de la Exégesis Católica (1563-1660)’, which addresses the exegetical tradition established by the first generation of Spanish Jesuits and later carried throughout Europe by other members of the society. While the first group of Jesuit biblical experts, to which Bellarmine belonged, was mainly engaged in the Louvain Controversy (1587–1588) on the correct edition of the Vulgate, Jesuits of later generations distinguished themselves by their mastery of ancient languages (Greek, Latin, Hebrew) and their skills in textual criticism of Sacred Scriptures, so much so that in a little over thirty years (1631–1660) they created a brief and concise commentary corpus on the entire biblical text. See, e.g. Manuel Sá, Notationes in totam Sacram Scripturam (1598); Juan de Mariana, Scholia in Vetus et Novum Testamentum (1619); Giovanni Stefano Menochio, Brevis explicatio sensus litteralis S. Scripturae, 2 vols, (1630); James Gordon, Biblia sacra cum commentariis ad sensum litterae..., 3 vols (1632); Jacques Tirin, Commentarius in Vetus et Novum Testamentum, 3 vols (1632). For further analyses of the broader implications of Jesuit exegetical works throughout and beyond the Reformation controversy, see D. Bertrand, ‘The Society of Jesus and the Church Fathers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century’, in The Reception of the Church Fathers in the West, ed. I. Backus, II, New York, 1997, pp. 889–950.
For a history of the colonial Kingdom of New Granada, see R. Ferrer S.J., ‘Carta anua de la Provincia del Nuevo Reino y Quito, 1605’, Instituto de Historia Eclesiastica Ecuatoriana, 9, 1988, pp. 185–8; G. Decorme S.J., ‘The Society of Jesus in New Spain: Ecuador’, Woodstock Letters, 64, 1935, pp. 366–98.
According to O’Neill and Domínguez, Diccionario histórico (n. 1 above), p. 1203, Vicente was a Spanish missionary, born in Valencia in 1585. In 1612, he left Seville with fifteen other Jesuits for Cartagena de Indias (Colombia). Together with Father Barnabé de Rojas (c. 1580–c. 1630), they were the first Jesuits to land on Venezuelan soil and help set up its government. Afterwards, Vicente took part in the ‘Congregación Provincial de Quito’ in 1630 and represented the rector of the College of Quito in the congregation of Santa Fe de Bogotá in 1636. The two congregations were meant to discuss the establishment of a separate province for Quito, and Vicente’s presence in both meeting suggests that he played an authoritative role as advocate for the mission to Quito. From 1642 onwards, his name gradually disappears from Jesuit catalogues until his memory was eventually lost. Further archival investigation has revealed a letter exchange between Vicente and the then Father General, Muzio Vitelleschi (1563–1645); Vicente was in Quito at the time of the exchange, and in a fragment dated 1636–1637, he was invited to submit his work on Habakkuk in order to receive formal approval: ‘V.R. entregué el trabajo que tiene dispuesto sobre Habacuc al P. Provincial, que yo escribiré’ (MS N.R.1-2, fol. 169v).
The suppression of the Society of Jesus was a politically instigated act which resulted in the removal of all Jesuits from the countries of Western Europe and their colonies. It began in Portugal in 1759, then France (1764), Spain (1767) and Austria (1770). Anti-Jesuit forces succeeded in convincing Pope Clement XIV to issue a decree of suppression, Dominus ac Redemptor, in 1773, in order to secure peace in the Church. The society was reinstated by Pope Pius VII in 1814. Regarding the Jesuit expulsion from South America, King Charles III of Spain accused them—among other things—of being responsible for the resistance of the indigenous people during the Paraguay war (1754–1756). See Tadeo Xavier Henis, ‘Diario histórico de la ribelión y Guerra de los pueblos guaranties situados en la costa oriental del río Uruguay del año 1754’, in Colección general de documentos tocantes a la tercera época de las conmociones de los Regulares de la Compañia en el Paraguay, IV, Madrid, 1770, p. 103.
On 20 August 1767, the Spanish Coronel, José Diguja, who was commander of the royal army and president of the royal ‘audiencia’ of Quito, confiscated the Jesuit University of San Gregorio of Quito with all its possessions and expelled the Jesuits from the country a few days later. On 23 August of the same year, officials began to compile inventories of the Jesuit goods, in particular their libraries. The original manuscript of the inventory of the Jesuit University of San Gregorio is preserved at the Biblioteca Espinoza Pólit in Quito and was transcribed in 2007; see F. Piñas S.J., Libro inventario del Colegio Máximo de Quito de la Compañía de Jesus y sus haciendas durante su secuestro el 20 de Agosto de 1767, Quito, 2007.
For a history of the Jesuit University of San Gregorio, see M. Sánchez Astudillo, Textos de catedráticos jesuitas en Quito colonial, Quito, 1959; J. M. Vargas, ‘Manifestaciones artísticas, literaria y sociales en el siglo XVII’, in Historia de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, Quito, 1985, pp. 89–123; A. Carrión et al., Los Jesuitas en el Ecuador, Quito, 1987; J. M. Barnadas, ‘La biblioteca jesuita de Quito en el siglo XVII, breve panorama analítico’, Ibero –Americana Pragensia, 8, 1974, pp. 151–61. Unlike most other Jesuit institutions of South America, there is no modern catalogue of San Gregorio’s colonial library. For samples of modern catalogues of colonial libraries, see L. Martín, La biblioteca nacional del Perú, aportes para su historia, Lima, 1971; M. Morales, La librería grande. El fondo antiguo de la Compañía de Jesús en Argentina, Rome, 2012; M. A. Gorzalcznany and A. O. Gaona, La biblioteca jesuítica de Asunción, Buenos Aires, 2006; A. E. Fraschini, Index librorum bibliothecae Collegii Maximi Cordubensis Societatis Iesu anno 1757, Buenos Aires, 2003.
Barnadas, ‘La biblioteca jesuita de Quito’, (n. 14 above), pp. 151–61.
See Piñas, Libro inventario (n. 13 above), fols 4v–14r, for the names, status and works of the Jesuits teaching in the college at the time; and Vargas, ‘Manifestaciones’ (n. 14 above), pp. 20–21, for the nationalities of the Quiteñan scholars.
See Rome, ARSI, MS N.R. 1-2, 169v (n. 11 above).
Jesuit Accounts of the Colonial Americas: Intercultural Transfers, Intellectual Disputes, and Textualities, ed. M. A. Bernier et al., Toronto, 2014. On Jesuit activity in early modern Quito, see J. M. Egas, Radiografía de la piedra: Los jesuitas y su templo en Quito, Quito, 2008; A. Vàzquer Varela, ‘José De Eslava: Labor educativa de un Jesuita en Quito’, in Historia de la educación en América, ed. P. M. Alonso Marañón and M. Casado Arboniés, Madrid, 2007; and on Jesuit evangelism in Quito, see C. Fernández-Salvador, ‘Jesuit Missionary Work in the Imperial Frontier: Mapping the Amazon in Seventeenth-Century Quito’, in Religious Transformations in the Early Modern Americas, ed. S. Rivett and S. Kirk, Philadelphia, 2014, pp. 205–28; Y. El Alaoui, Jésuites, morisques et indiens: Étude comparative des méthodes d'évangélisation de la Compagnie de Jésus d'après les traités de José de Acosta (1588) et d'Ignacio de las Casas (1605–1607), Paris, 2006; L. Laurencich Minelli and P. Numhauser, Sublevando el virreinato: Documentos contestatarios a la historiografía tradicional del Perú colonial, Quito, 2007.
For works on the intellectual history of the Kingdom of Quito, see E. Willingham, ‘Imagining the Kingdom of Quito: Reading History and National Identity in Juan de Velasco’s Historia del Reino de Quito’, in Jesuit Accounts (n. 18 above), pp. 81–106; however, this contribution is relevant to a later timeframe (1727–1792). On Jesuit literary works produced in Mexico, see P. C. Pawlin, ‘From Sacred Rhetoric to the Republic of Letters: Jesuit Sermons in Seventeenth-Century New Spain’, in Jesuits Accounts (n. 18 above), pp. 144–68; and P. Chinchilla, Escrituras de la modernidad. Los jesuitas entre cultura retórica y cultura científica, Mexico City, 2008.
Bertrand, ‘The Society of Jesus’ (n. 9 above), pp. 879–950.
A. Laird, ‘Colonial Spanish America and Brazil’, in The Oxford Handbook of Neo-Latin, eds. S. Knight and S. Tilg, Oxford, 2015, pp. 525–41 (526).
A Guide to Neo-Latin Literature, ed. V. Moul, Cambridge, 2017; The Oxford Handbook of Neo-Latin (n. 21 above); A. Laird, ‘The Role of Latin in the Early Modern World’, Renaissance Forum, 8, 2012, pp. 167–92; Brill’s Encyclopaedia of the Neo-Latin World, ed. P. Ford et al., 2 vols, Leiden, 2014.
See J. H. Stoll, The Book of Habakkuk. A Study Manual, Grand Rapids, 1972, pp. 12–14; R. Coggins and J. H. Han, Six Minor Prophets Through the Centuries: Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, Chichester, 2011.
For Stoll, The Book of Habakkuk (n. 23 above), p. 12, the name comes from a Hebrew root word, Habbhaku, meaning ‘to embrace’. A. B. Davidson, ‘The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah’, in The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, Cambridge, 1899, p. 45, writes that ‘the name means “darling”.’ Ferreiro, in T. C. Oden and A. Christian Commentary on Scripture: The Twelve Prophets, Downers Grove IL, 2003, p. 186, suggests that it may be an Akkadian name referring to a kind of plant or fruit tree. Different interpretations of the name led to various hypotheses as to the date of the book. The Hebrew chronicle Seder ‘Olam Rabbah connected the book to the reign of Manasseh (687–642 BC), the worst king in Judean history according to 2 Kings 21:2, 9, 11, 16; 23:26. On the other hand, Theodore of Mopsuestia (Commentary on Habakkuk, Patrologia Graeca, LXVI, col. 208) argued that the Chaldeans—mentioned by Habakkuk in his second book—were, in fact, the Babylonians whom God brought to enslave his people (587 BC), in punishment for their wickedness. Modern voices, instead, exclude the interpretation of Chaldeans as Babylonians since there is no reference to captivity. Thus, according to Stoll, The Book of Habakkuk, p. 14, the book was written before 586 BC. If the enemies described in the book were Assyrians, then it is likely to be date from between 625 BC, when the Chaldeans were the major threat to Assyria, and 612 BC, the date of the fall of Nineveh. Finally, if the enemies were indeed Chaldeans, then the date shifts to from 605 to 600 BC following the battle of Carchemish; see Ferreiro, in Christian Commentary, p. 186.
The Book of Habakkuk is structured in the following manner: 1:2-4, the prophet inveighs against violence and oppression; 1:5–11, he predicts the coming of the Chaldean conquerors sent by God to punish injustice; 1:12–17, a further complaint by the prophet against the oppressor; 2:1–5, the prophet is called a watchman given the task of writing his vision, in which he asserts that the wicked will perish and the just shall live; 2:6–20, a litany of five woes against the enemies of his people; 3.1–19, a psalm heralding the coming of Yahweh in a theophany to rescue his people from their enemies.
See, e.g. Romans 1:17 and Galatians 3:11 for Habakkuk 2:4; Hebrews 10:35–8 for Habakkuk 2:3-4; Acts 13:41 for Habakkuk 1:55. For Habakkuk 2:4, see Augustine, Letter 140.30, in Fathers of the Church, XX, p. 122; Letter 190, in ibid., XXX, pp. 274–5; Tractates on the Gospel of John 50.6, in ibid., LXXXVIII, pp. 263–4; Cyprian, Three Books of Testimonies against the Jews 12.1.5, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, V, pp. 509–10; Theodore of Mopsuestia, Commentary on Habakkuk, Patrologia Graeca, LXVI, col. 436.
Jerome, Commentarii in prophetas minores, ed. M. Adriaen, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina (CCSL) 76 and 76°, Turnhout, 1969 and 1964; id., Libri commentariorum, Patrologia Latina, XXV, cols 1237–1338°, Turnhout, 1845.
Jerome, ‘Prologus’, Commentariorum in Abacuc Prophetam libri duo, Patrologia Latina, XXV, cols 1274–6 (587–8).
Rome, ARSI, MS Opp. NN. 279 (n. 3 above), fol. 4r: ‘Sic canticum tuum omnes avidissime spectamus, auri argentique tui fodinas in lucem profer ex monte umbroso et condenso, tanquam sol effulge, ut genuense et imperiale genus, Valentia mater, Hispania pater, tanto filio congaudeant, Indicum tandem solum te concionatorem et doctoremque toto orbe concelebret. Vale’.
Ibid., fols 4v–5r: ‘Fama tua ad nostras aures pervenit Vicenti clarissime nosque in terra promissionis Indiarum ingeniorum monstra vidimus de genere giganteo: monstra igitur opus tuum, assurge monstrum, ut inter litteratos gigantes, gigas monstrorum ingeniorumque portentum demonstreris’.
Rome, ARSI, MS N. R. et Q. 3, fol. 75r-v.
Rome, ARSI, MS Opp. NN. 279 (n. 3 above), fol. 4r.
The Latin manuscript often contains misspellings and at times a mixture of Latin and Spanish. As a guiding principle, I have adapted the Latin to its classical form whenever I found inconsistencies. I have expanded all contractions, normalized punctuation according to modern usage and divided the text into paragraphs and subparagraphs.
Rome, ARSI, MS Op. NN. 279 (n. 3 above), fol. 5r, (1).1: ‘Primos flores tibi damus amplissime lector nostrarum lucubrationum maiores fructus postea daturi’.
Ibid.: ‘Haec sunt quae inter albicantes scopulos, et niveas lampades desudavimus. Quitensis enim civitas inter gelidos montes, scopulosque flammas vomentes sita est’.
Ibid.: ‘Sed quomodo cantabimus canticum Domini in terra aliena’.
Ibid.: fol. 5r, (1).2: ‘Totus mundus vivo fideli patria est, hoc solum nativum, haec philosophanti patria est. … Thesaurum huius cantici ingressurus quantae sese obtulerunt mysteriorum divitiae’.
John Chrysostom, Hom[ilia]23 in Acta Apostolorum, 10:23–4, in id., The Homilies ... on the Acts of the Apostles, ed. J. H. Parker, Oxford, 1851, p. 154: ‘I will not tell you, until you promise me to receive baptism, and, being baptized, to live aright. It is not right to give you the solution of these questions. The preaching is not meant for amusement. For even if I solve this, on the back of this follows another question: of such questions, there is a bottomless deep’.
Rome, ARSI, MS Opp. NN. 279 (n. 3 above), fol. 5r, (2).3: ‘Sed quis tam profundum pelagus arare poterit? Quis dissertissimus urinator tam praeclaras margaritas ex hoc pelago extrahere sufficiat? Nam, ut aureum os chrisostomi affatur, hom.[ilia] 23. in Acta. Abyssus quaestionum sacra scriptura est’.
Ibid., fol. 5r, (2).4: ‘Caelestes uniones, quae superbis absconduntur’.
Bernard of Clairvaux, De gradibus humilitatis, II.3: ‘Illud quoque quod in scala illa, quae in typo humilitatis Jacob monstrata est, Dominus desuper innixus apparuit, quid nobis aliud innuit, nisi quod in culmine humilitatis constituitur cognitio veritatis?’ Bernard interprets the biblical text by applying the figure (typus) of God’s leaning on the ladder in Genesis 28:12–13: ‘And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring”.’
Rome, ARSI, MS Opp NN. 279 (n. 3 above), fol. 5r, (2).6: ‘Ad rem faciunt D. Bernardi verba de gradibus humilitatis, qui scalam Jacob, et Deum scalae innixum, sic interpretatur. Quod in scala, inquit, quae in typo humilitatis Jacob monstrata est, Dominus desuper innixus apparuit quid aliud innuit nisi quod in culmine humilitatis constituitur cognitio veritatis? Itaque his munitus virtutibus aggredi spero tantum divitiarum pelagus’.
See n. 41 above.
For a discussion on the proper way to approach Scripture, see Augustine, Confessiones, III.5.9: ‘Itaque institui animum intendere in scripturas sanctas et videre, quales essent. Et ecce video rem non conpertam superbis neque nudatam pueris, sed incessu humilem, successu excelsam et velatam mysterii’.
Rome, ARSI, MS Opp. NN. 279 (n. 3 above), fol. 5r–v, (3).7-8.
Ibid., fol. 5v, (3).9.
Ibid., fol. 5v, (4).10: ‘Neque id quaerimus, ut in nobis inania saeculorum ornamenta, sed ut salubria rerum emolumenta laudentur’.
Ibid., fol. 5v, (5).11: ‘Quia Christus Dominus Agnus est in sacra scriptura absconditus’.
Ibid., fol. 5v, (5).12: ‘Non est Agnus noster uno contentus vellere, saepius tonderi potest. Bona vellera sunt sensus mystici sacrati affectus. Talibus abundat Iesus, nudari potest, spoliari non potest’. Gilbert was a twelfth-century Cistercian Abbot from England; after Bernard of Clairvaux died (1153), he was entrusted with the task of completing the 86 sermons that Bernard composed on the Song of Songs. Gilbert wrote 47 sermons before he died in 1172; this entire excerpt is taken from his Sermon 14.37–41.
Rome, ARSI, MS Opp. NN. 279 (n. 3 above), fol. 5v, (5).13: ‘Multis huius cantici velleribus ditati sunt sacri scriptores’.
H. de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scriptures, Grand Rapids, 1998.
Ibid., fol. 6r, (6).14: ‘Offero ad mores hominum componendos, ad amorem divinum excitandum ut divina lex iam diu lacerata (ut prophetica phrasi utar) resarciatur’.
In this paper I analyse only the homily after the first lemma (fols 20v–22r) entitled ‘oratione inchoanda sunt opera nostra et finienda’ (‘our works must begin and end with a prayer’).
See Jerome, Commentarii in prophetas minores (n. 27 above).
See W. Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate, Collegeville MN, 1995, for a full discussion of Augustine’s catechetical treatises.
Augustine, De catechizandibus rudibus, ed. B. Ramsey, transl. B. Canning, Instructing Beginners in the Faith, New York, 2006, II.3: ‘Sed neque ita licet educere et quasi exporrigere in sensum audientium per sonum vocis illa vestigia, quae imprimit intellectus memoriae, sicut apertus et manifestus est vultus: illa enim sunt intus in animo, iste foris in corpore’.
Ibid., IV.8: ‘Omnisque Scriptura divina quae ante scripta est, ad praenuntiandum adventum Domini scripta est, et quidquid postea mandatum est litteris et divina auctoritate firmatum, Christum narrat et dilectionem monet: manifestum est, non tantum totam Legem et Prophetas in illis duobus pendere praeceptis dilectionis Dei et proximi, quae adhuc sola Scriptura sancta erat, cum hoc Dominus diceret, sed etiam quaecumque posterius salubriter consecrata sunt memoriaeque mandata divinarum volumina Litterarum’.
Ibid., XXVI.50: ‘His dictis interrogandus est, an haec credat, atque observare desideret. Quod cum responderit, sollemniter utique signandus est et Ecclesiae more tractandus’.
Vicente reports it as ‘Oratio Habacuc pro ignorantiis’, which appears to be an error for ‘ignorationibus’; see Jerome’s Commentarium: ‘Oratio Abacuc prophetae pro ignorationibus’, in the 1610 Douay-Rheims version of the Bible. The term ‘ignorationibus’ is ablative for ‘ignoratio’ (ignorance). The word used by Vicente (‘ignorantiis’) seems to be a grammatical mistake due to a mixture of Latin (‘ignorantes’, participle of the third declension, which should be ‘ignorantibus’ in the ablative form) and Spanish, where ‘ignorancia’ is the word for ignorance.
Rome, ARSI, MS Opp. NN. 279 (n. 3 above), fol. 20r.
Cornelius a Lapide, S.I., Commentaria in Sacram Scripturam, Leipzig, 1699; Francisco de Ribera, S.I., In librum duodecim Prophetarum commentarii, Segovia,1590; Melchor Castro, S.I., De necessitate divini auxilii, Seville, 1590.
John Chrysostom, Hom[ilia] 6 de fide, Patrologia Graeca, LXIV, cols 462–6; Antonius Agellius, In Habacuc prophetam, Antwerp, 1597; Jean de Lorini, S.I., Commentarium in librum Psalmorum, Paris, 1611.
Rome, ARSI, MS Opp. NN. 279 (n. 3 above), fol. 20r: ‘De hoc titulo sanctissime agunt quam plurimi doctores inter quos non in postremis memorandi sunt patres Cornelius, Ribera et Castro qui latius copiosusque versa[n]t illum, eadem titulo coronantur Psal. 79. Videantur D. Chrisostomus Agellius et Lorinus a [corrigitur pro ea] quibus plurima de ignorantiis perdocte tractantur’.
Ibid., fol. 20v: ‘Quid igitur faciendum in tanta versionum sylva? Ex faecundissima idiomatis Hebraei radice orta?’
Ibid., fol. 20r: ‘Sed unusquisque abundet in suo sensu. Ad nostrum igitur sensus moralem et allegoricum procedamus, ut ex istis ignorantiis plenum divinae scientiae lumen in mentibus nostris oboriatur’.
Ibid., fol. 21r: ‘Difficultas nobis oritur: an illa vox primum referenda sit ad tempus vel ad dignitatem orationis? Ad tempus referunt D. Ambros[ius], Chrisost[omus], pater Cornelius et alii primum omnium, id est ante omnia nempe diluculo quo tempore oratio gratissima est Deo. Unde Regius Vates [David] Psal[mus] 87.14 “et ego” inquit, “ad te Domine clamavi, et mane oratio mea praeveniet te”.’
See Gilbert Génébrard, Psalmi Davidis vulgata editione ..., Paris, 1587.
Rome, ARSI, MS Opp. NN. 279 (n. 3 above), fol. 21r: ‘Nam tempus matutinum et vespertinum lex vetus praecationibus assignabat sacrisque faciendis destinabat. Matutinum praesertim ab iis accomodatum apparet quia ea hora magis expediti et vacui sumus a caeteris humanis curis. Hinc Regius Vates Psal. 87.14 “Mane adstabo tibi et videbo.” Pro quo D. Hieronimus ex Hebraeo vertit: “Mane adstabo tibi et contemplabor”.’
Rome, ARSI, MS Opp. NN. 279 (n. 3 above), fol.21r, 8: ‘Alii referunt illud primum non tantum ad tempus, sed ad dignitatem, quasi dicat Apostolus [Tim. 1.2] ‘hortor et moneo, ut praecipuum studium et cura sit de praecibus rite offerendis’, ita ut eundem sensum habeat hoc verbum ac illud Matt. 6.33 ‘Primum quaerite regnum Dei et haec omnia adicientur vobis’.
Thomas Aquinas, ‘Commentary on the Lord’s Prayer’, in The Three Greatest Prayers, transl.L. Shapcote, O.P., Westminster, MD, 1956, pp. 22–3.
See Habakkuk 1:1–17.
See Habakkuk 2:1–4.
Rome, ARSI, MS Opp. NN. 279 (n. 3 above), fol. 20v: ‘Nam ut D. Augustinus inquit in suo Enchiridion. 3.2. “de quotidianis et brevibusque peccatis, sine quibus hac vita non ducitur, quotidiana oratio fidelium satisfacit”.’
Rome, ARSI, MS Opp. NN. 279 (n. 3 above), fol. 21r, (10): ‘Hoc magisterio usus est Christus Dominus: nam Redemptionis opus praeclarum oratione incepit, orationeque claussit; in horto enim ad Patrem oravit, et in cruce Patri animam suam commendans, dixit: “Pater in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum” [Lucas 23:46]. Ut innueret orationem principium et finem esse debere’.
Rome, ARSI, MS Opp. NN 279, fol. 22r: ‘Iste erat laudatissimus mos divi Gregorii Nazianzeni sicuti habetur in oratione eius quam dicebat iter facturus—Tibi inquit Christe vivo, tibi loquor tibi Christe sedeo, tibi incedo, quando quidem me manu regis’.
For a fuller discussion of biblical interpretation in the Reformation period, see Gordon and McLean, Shaping the Bible (n. 6 above).
See, e.g. António Vieira, Sermão da Sexagésima, Lisbon, 1655, in Sermões Escolhidos, II, São Paulo, 1965; and the works cited in n. 5 above.
For the influence of Jesuit texts on the development of feminine rhetorical and ascetic writings, see Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Obras completas, ed. A. Mendez Plancarte and A. Salceda, 4 vols, Mexico, 1951–1957. See also the life and works of Mariana de Jesús, e.g. J. Morán de Butrón, Vida de la B. Mariana de Jesús de Paredes y Flores, conocida vulgarmente bajo el nombre de la Azucena de Quito, Quito, 1856. See esp. ‘Ejercicio Devoto en Honor de la Sentencia de Muerte que contra el Inocentísimo Jesus pronunció el Presidente Pilato’, Havana, 1855, which was written in Quito (1640) by Mariana de Jesus in honour of her spiritual father, the Jesuit Hernando de la Cruz (1592–1646). See H. R. Castelo, Literatura en la Audiencia de Quito, siglo XVII, Quito, 1980.
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I wish to thank the Leverhulme Trust for the generous support that made this publication possible during my time as Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at KCL.
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Genghini, M.G. ‘Quomodo cantabimus canticum Domini in terra aliena?’ Jesuit Re-invention of Scriptural Commentary in a Newly Recovered Text from Seventeenth-Century Quito. Int class trad 30, 271–290 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-022-00612-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-022-00612-y