'Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it': the ancient and medieval career of a Biblical text (review)

Short notices Cohen, Jeremy, 'Befertile and increase,fillthe earth and master it': the ancien and medieval career of a Biblical text, rpt, Ithaca & London, Cornell University Press, 1992; paper; pp. xiv, 375; R.R.P. U S $18.65. First published in 1989, when it won both the American Catholic Historical Association's John Gilmary Shea Prize and the National Jewish Book Award for Scholarship, Jeremy Cohen's study of a single Biblical verse, Genesis 1:28, has now been reissued in paperback. In this verse, relating to the sixth day of Creation, God entrusts A d a m and Eve with a unique mission in the cosmic order, to 'fill the earth and master it' Cohen's book is concerned with the way in which this verse was interpreted by Jewish and Christian scholars up to the Reformation. He has aimed to avoid presupposing a particular meaning for this text and is especially concerned not to assume that it was interpreted as a license for the exploitation of nature by human beings. This interpretation was promoted by Lynn White in the 1960s, w h o argued that the roots of the present 'environmental crisis' weretobe found in the Judaeo-Christian understanding of human domination over nature as reflected in this verse. [Ed. Note, see also J. C. Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian shore: nature and culture in Western thought from ancient times to the end ofthe eighteenth century (Berkeley, 1973)] Cohen approaches his subject not to trace the history of a specific interpretation of this kind, but to gather and examine the widest possible variety of ancient and medieval Jewish and Christian commentary on this one verse, he draws on Biblical commentaries, sermons, law, theology, mysticism and poetry, weaving themtogetherinto a coherent interpretative history. His approach is innovative and unique. This is not critical exegesis of the kind practices by m o d e m biblical scholars, but neither is it a kind of 'history of ideas'. Cohen does begin with a short study of the content and scriptural context of this verse, where he applies the techniques of m o d e m biblical scholarship. But he moves on to look at the traditions of rabbinic homilectical and legal texts, as well as at medieval Jewish jurisprudence, exegesis and Kabbalah. This is followed by an account of patristic and medieval Christian commentaries, and of other medievaltexts,such as theological lectures, canon lawyers' notes, and poetry,finishingwith some comments on Chaucer's reference to the same verse in the prologue to The Wife of Bath's Tale. Through all this material Cohen finds that the verse was rarely if ever construed as a license for the selfish exploitation of nature. Instead the commentators focussed on the verse as evidence for the purpose and place of human nature in the divine order, they 186 Short notices reflected on the tension implicit in the verse between the sexual function and the ruling function and emphasized the unique cosmic position of humanity, placed between the heavenly and the terrestrial. In its careful and detailed assembling of such a range of material, this is a rich and dense book. A crucial element in its success is the combination of Jewish and Christian sources to give a breadth of interpretation. This is coupled with a sensitive reading of these sources, which does not force them into a preconceived mould. The result is an excellent account of medieval thought on themes which were of great importance at the time and which continue to resonate today. Toby Burrows University Library University of Western Australia Kitzinger, Ernst Early medieval art, rev. ed., Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 1990; cloth and paper; pp. 127; 39figs,16 plates; R.R.P. US$35.00 (cloth), $12.95 (paper). This book wasfirstpublished by the British Museum in 1940 as Early medieval art in the British Museum. In its new format it sits quite well with more recent volumes like Lucdla Bums' 77ie British Museum book of Greek and Roman art (1991), though comparison shows the changes in interests over the period. Early medieval art is concerned almost exclusively with style in four periods, late antique and early Christian, Carolingian...