The Medieval Quadriga?: Solving the Confusion

*Insert Origen Sad Face Here*

In our last post (here), we handled the two species of the literal sense, called proper and improper/metaphorical respectively: the former results from e.g., saying that the Son ascends, whereas the latter from e.g., saying that he sits.

At the end, we quickly noted that there are many different sorts of literal senses, e.g., the historical, the aetiological, etc. One will find these and more throughout tradition. However, Thomas (although not only he) develops a method to adequately divide the literal sense into only two species. Although there will be tension (for lack of better terms) between the classifications of the literal senses and this specification, the latter is designed to be adequate and thus all-encompassing of the individual literal senses found throughout holy Scripture.

We are now turning to a similar specification of the spiritual sense into three species. We recall that the spiritual sense is that sense taken from signification in realities, by contrast to that sense taken from signification in letters/words, which constitutes our other genus, the literal sense.

The three species of the spiritual sense we will call allegorical, anagogical, and moral. For current and initial purposes, one can understand these three as pertaining to faith, hope, and love respectively: allegorical pertains to what is to be believed; anagogical, what is to be hoped; and moral, what is to be loved/done.

In a subsequent post, we will take time to expound these three species as Thomas understands them. Here however, we need to do some initial groundclearing and handle a major problem throughout the tradition. This problem has caused much confusion in the last centuries over the senses of holy Scripture broadly speaking, as well as (especially) the generic distinction between the literal and spiritual. That problem, in a word, is the medieval quadriga.

The Actual Medieval Quadriga: The Basics

Speaking of the medieval quadriga usually refers to what is called the four senses found in holy Scripture–or more usually (but adding to the confusion) the fourfold sense found therein. Although receiving many different names, these four are often called literal, allegorical, anagogical, and moral (or quite commonly tropological).

We will see below that there has been extreme confusion about this for the last several centuries. But the important point is that the quadriga includes one genus (the literal) and then three species of yet another genus (the spiritual). It looks like this:

This is not communicated well by speaking (using shorthand) of the quadriga. The four senses it encloses do not all belong to the same genus of sense—or even are they all even species! Rather, the literal is itself a genus including two other species (not made explicit in the quadriga!), namely the proper and metaphorical. This comes from the letters or words themselves. But and by great contrast, the allegorical, anagogical, and moral are all species of another genus, namely the spiritual, which comes from the realities outside and before the letters. It comes not from the signifying letters, but from the signfying realities which themselves have been (afterward) signified by the letters.

These facts are greatly obscured by speaking (again shorthand) of the fourfold sense in holy Scripture, making it seem like one (literal?) sense is somehow plurified or telescoped out from the text. Note this clearly, as we will return to it below.

These facts are even more obscured given that allegorical is very commonly a name for (at least): (1) any or all senses besides the literal one (including either species); (2) any or all senses besides the proper one (of the genus the literal sense); (3) the improper/metaphorical proper literal sense itself; (4) the genus spiritual sense; or and as the medieval quadriga intends it, (5) a species of the spiritual sense. Allegory is said in many modes (even besides these), and this has not helped contemporary or early modern readers of the fathers and high scholastics.