Читать книгу Gesammelte Aufsätze zur romanischen Philologie – Studienausgabe. Herausgegeben und ergänzt um Aufsätze, Primärbibliographie und Nachwort von Matthias Bormuth und Martin Vialon онлайн

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A student of mediaeval French literature may remember here the figurative series in the mystery plays, especially the most famous of them, the Jeu d’AdamJeu d’Adam with its procession of prophets. These prophets are not prophets in the restricted sense in which we normally use this word, but Old TestamentaryAltes Testament personalities in general: besides Isaiah, Daniel and Jeremiah, there appear Abraham and Moses, David and Solomon, Balaam and Nebuchadnezar and others. Each of them begins with one Latin sentence isolated from the text of the Bible, and then goes on to explain the sentence in French as an announcement of Christ. Isaiah for example will not present the whole of his prophecy concerning the future of Jerusalem and the king of Babylon, but is introduced exclusively for the sake of one sentence: egredietur virga de radice Jesse etc., which was considered as a prediction of the Virgin and Christ; just as Abraham is introduced for the sake of the promise God made to him, and Aaron for his budding rod. This is pure figurism; as I have mentioned before, the Old TestamentAltes Testament becomes a succession of isolated prefigurations, or, if you prefer, figural prophecies of Christ. In this system even Adam may become not only a figura but a figural prophet of Christ. His sleep during which Eve, the mother of mankind in the flesh, was created out of one of his ribs, prefigures Christ’s death or sleep before his resurrection, when one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water, symbols of the sacraments of the Church, the mother of mankind in the spirit. Adam’s sleep is the mystical sleep of contemplation or ecstasy; when he awakens he starts prophesying: ‘therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh’; this passage has been constantly interpreted as a figureFiguraldeutung of the union of Christ and the Church. This is one of the most ancient and venerable figures, one of the few introduced by Saint Paul himself (Eph: 5, 29–32): sacramentum hoc magnum est, ego autem dico in Christo et in ecclesia. This interpretation of Adam as a figurative prophet predicting Christ and the Church has become an unbroken tradition. I became aware of it for the first time when reading a sermonPredigt of Saint Bernard, the second in Septuagesima. The Jeu d’AdamJeu d’Adam, it is true, does not present Adam in the procession of the prophets, but in another passage of the play he outspokenly predicts Christ. After his fall, when he gives himself up to despair and long-winded self-accusations, he sees one ray of hope: ‘There will be no salvation for me except by the son who will be born of the virgin’ – Deus … ne me ferat ja nul aïe, fors le fils qu’istra de Marie. In his deepest despair, he becomes conscious of the future redemption; he has knowledge of the future. This blithe anticipation of the future may appear to us as mediaeval naïveté, as a lack of historical perspective – the same historical naïveté with which Adam and Eve or in other plays other biblical personalities are realistically depicted as Frenchmen of the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries. And, of course, there is indeed implied, in such phenomena, a naïveté and lack of historical perspective; but such an evaluation would not be exhaustive. The figurative interpretationFiguraldeutung, in spite of its stress on historical completeness derives its inspiration from the eternal wisdom of God, in whose mind there does not exist a difference of time. In His sight, what happens here and now, has happened from the very beginning, and may recur at any moment in the flow of time. At any time, at any place, Adam falls, Christ sacrifices himself, and humanity, the bride of the Song of Songs, faithful, hopeful, and loving, searches for Him. A personality who is a figurafigura Christi, as Adam is, has knowledge of the providential future – Christ knew that Judas would betray him, just as another figure of Christ, CharlemagneKarl d. Große, Charles li reis, nostre emperere maignes, in the Chanson de RolandRolandslied, knows from the very beginning that Ganelon is a traitor. The eternal coexistence in God’s mind of all historical events is a conception best expressed by Saint Augustine’sAugustinus doctrine that God keeps present in his mind all things past and future in their true reality – that therefore it is not correct to speak of God’s fore-knowledge, but simply of his knowledge – scientia Dei non praescientia sed tantum scientia dici potest. Figurism gives the basis for the mediaeval fusion of realistic naïveté and other-worldly wisdom.