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3. Dedication Letter to The Commentary on the Six Days of Creation
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3 dedication letter to The Commentary on the Six Days of Creation The Expositio in Hexameron (The Commentary on the Six Days of Creation) delivers an explanation of the opening of Genesis that Abelard wrote at Heloise’s request. It appears to have been composed before at least one of The Sermons (Sermon 29), and it has been dated to the early to mid-1130s, tentatively about 1133, although perhaps with an addition made as late as 1137.1 In its content and wording it displays a close connection with the hymns in the first book of The Paraclete Hymnal.2 In the commentary Abelard examines the structure of the six days of creation (whence the term hexaemeron, simply the Greek for “six days”), the allegories contained in the Genesis account , and the ethical meaning of the creation allegories. The commentary is not complete: even in manuscripts with the fullest extant form of the text, it covers only Genesis 1.1–2.25, breaking off just before the fall of Adam and Eve. In the very first sentence of the Dedication Letter Abelard identifies three sections of the Bible as posing especial difficulties for prospective interpreters, namely, the opening of Genesis, the Song of 1. See Mews, “On Dating theWorks of Peter Abelard,” 118–20 and 132, and Expositio in Hexameron, ed. Mary F. Romig, in Petri Abaelardi opera theologica, vol. 5, ed. Charles Burnett and Mary Romig, CCCM 15 (2004): lxxiv (“early to mid 1130s”). Compare the dating of 1136–1140 previously proposed by Eligius M. Buytaert, “Abelard’s Expositio in Hexaemeron,” Antonianum 43 (1968): 163–94, at 182–88. 2. For information, see De Santis, I sermoni, 141. Songs, and the prophecies of Ezekiel. Not one to shy from the difficult , Abelard wrestled as an exegete with each of these three sections in the Sacred Scriptures, although only The Commentary on the Six Days of Creation is known to survive as an effort (albeit merely partial) at a full-blown exposition. As Abelard recounted in the Historia calamitatum, he had grappled already long before with the prophecies of Ezekiel.3 Upon being challenged by students of Anselm of Laon not just to carp at the insufficiencies of their master but instead to show how to do him better, Abelard had expounded upon the prophet almost by chance in comments (which he would not necessarily ever have written out in toto) as his first attempt at exegesis; he claims to have formulated his lecture from one day to the next. By including Ezekiel here in the short list of troubling passages in the Bible, Abelard could allude to a copy of a commentary he had later set down in writing and already donated to the Paraclete. Alternatively, he could be setting the stage for a subsequent request by Heloise that he devise one, which would enable him then to revise for presentation to the nuns whatever ideas or even whatever old draft (if any) he had retained. And what of the Song of Songs?4 Owing to his past affair with Heloise and also his prospective audience of nuns, it could be imagined that Abelard would have had good reason to avoid the sultry eroticism of the Song of Songs. Yet such a supposition would be illfounded . As can be proven by a glance at the daring and yet subtle parallels he drew in the Planctus (for instance, the Lament of Dinah) between biblical episodes and events in his life, Abelard did not hesitate to delve even into matters such as premarital sex and castration. A greater obstacle than any hypothesized timidity on Abelard’s part dedication to commentary on creation 3. Historia calamitatum, ed. Monfrin, pp. 68–70, lines 186–240; trans. Radice, pp. 7–8. 4.The reception of the Song in the Middle Ages, with extensive attention to Latin materials, has been the topic of three books: Ann W. Astell, The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990); E. Ann Matter, The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990); and Denys Turner, Eros and Allegory: Medieval Exegesis of the Song of Songs, Cistercian Studies Series 156 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1995). Only the second gives much coverage to Peter Abelard. [18.232.187.47] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 06:02 GMT) heloise and the nuns of the paraclete owing to his sexual past with Heloise could appear...