Arjo Vanderjagt

Detlev Patzold (Eds.)

The N eop laton ic

Tradition
Jewish, Christian
and Islamic Themes

Köln, Dinter 1991, pp. 397-406

 THE MYSTICISM OF NUMBER IN THE
MEDIEVAL PERIOD BEFORE, ERIUGENA

T h o m a s O ’L o u g h u n

I. Introduction
The concept o f a ‘dark age’ is not one that finds ready popularity among
historians of ideas, yet it is hard to avoid it as a designation for the period
in the Latin West between the death o f Boethius (AD 525) and the
Carolingian renaissance, at least, with regard to speculation about the
nature of the creation. This is a period devoid o f any towering figure in
the disciplines we now call philosophy or theology and what schools of
thought did exist concentrated, it seems, on the reproduction in excerpts
and catenae o f the earlier masters, especially Ambrose, Jerome, and
Augustine, and on production o f teaching manuals. That breuitas is one o f
the qualities most admired by writers o f the period,1 and Isidore the
encyclopaedist its greatest name, speaks for the whole culture. However,
we must proceed with caution. For it was this same period that copied
and preserved the great legacy o f the past and it was in direct continuity
with these obscure labourers that the illustrious o f the ninth-century, for
example Eriugena, built.2 So we have a basic question: did any currents
o f Neoplatonic thought survive during this period?

Where would one begin to look for these currents? Despite the fact that
the books o f earlier writers were available, we have almost nothing by
way o f direct new speculation on such themes as those that attracted
Augustine. There are no monographs developing his ideas on the
relation of the Source ofbeing to actual existing things, or on the human
knowledge o f God, or any other theme we might consider under the
broad heading o f ‘metaphysics’. Explicit studies o f earlier writers are
concentrated on the questions o f grace and free-will. Other works on
specific themes are focused clearly on the needs o f the teacher in the

1. Cf. J.N . Hillgarth’s introduction to his edition of Julian o f Toledo’s Prognostiam and
De conprobatione in C C SL 115 (1975), p. xix.
2. Being ‘illustrious’ and ‘leaving a name’ are the technical terms o f admiration in the
pre-scholastic period. While both terms have scriptural roots, they gained their special
sense of pointing to notable teachers and writers in the sequence o f works entitled De
uiris illustribus.
class-room or the catechist or the missionary. Again Isidore, the school­
master and preaching bishop, is typical. There is, however, one
exception to this pattern and that is the exegesis o f “ the account o f the
beginning o f the universe and the generation o f the world” 3 in the Book
o f Genesis. These commentaries drew together snippets on the nature o f
the universe, the relation o f the universe to its cause, and the nature of
space and time which their authors found in the works o f Augustine or
gleaned from the commentaries o f Basil or Ambrose. This process of
gathering material into convenient and orderly form for teaching can be
seen as early as the seventh-century in Spain,4 but it was in insular centres
in the eight century that the standard form for treating such matters
emerged - as can be seen in Bede5 or in numerous anonymous works.6 It
was probably in this form that Eriugena first encountered the study of
Genesis and found the range o f questions that had been traditionally
linked to its text.7 Here I want to isolate just one element in this
commentary tradition which I believe is a survivor o f the Neoplatonism
o f Augustine: the role played in them by the concept o f number - order -
weight.

II. The Range o f Investigation

This demands a word of explication. Surely, one might remark, the role
played by the concept of number or the role assigned to numbers in
exegesis cannot be considered Neoplatonic or else to be an assertion of
such general dimensions as to be meaningless.8 We must carefully
distinguish several strands o f exegesis using number which have generally
being classed together as a single phenomenon and labelled ‘number
symbolism’, ‘sacred arithmetic’, or ‘numerology’. One o f the most
striking elements in early medieval exegesis is the extraordinary role

3. This is Isidore’s one-line description o f what Genesis is about (Etymologiae 6,1,4; I am

using the manual edition ofW .M . Lindsay (Oxford 1911)).
4. See T. O ’Loughlin (1993).
5. C C SL 118A; and cf. C.W. Jones (1969).
6. Cf. B. Bischoff (1976).
7. Cf. T. O ’Loughlin (1992a).
8. There are a vast array of studies on number and number symbolism and the uses of
number-symbolism in the medieval period; and as a phenomenon it has been associated
with so many strands o f thought, from biblical arithmology to the survival o f highly
specific philosophies such as Neo-Pythagoreanism; for a general guide to the area, cf. V.F.
Hopper (1938); R . Lawlor (1982); and J. MacQueen (1985).
played by numbers. This fascination with the numbers in reading texts
has many origins. It is part o f the general cultural background as well as
having specific roots in the Scriptures themselves where number are used
in an explicitly sacral and revelatory way: an example is the 153 fishes in
John’s gospel (Jn 21:11) which lead to much exegetical ingenuity, not
least, but most famously, by Augustine.9 This fascination found a variety
of scholarly expressions. Tyconius dedicated part o f his Liber regularum to
the problems of finding the hidden message contained in passages with
numbers.10 Augustine considered arithmetic to be a valuable, if possibly
dangerous, aid to the exegete and seems compelled to devote attention to
number he finds in the text or to count sequences and find ever new
meanings therein.11 Eucherius in his Formula for exegesis saw numbers in
the text as a formal code and provided a convenient key to no less than 24
numbers between 1 and 100 and supported each explanation with a
quotation from Scripture.12 All this was taken up enthusiastically by their
successors. Whenever they encountered a number, be it the number of a
day o f the creation, the number of rivers in paradise, the ages o f the
patriarchs, or the dimension o f the ark, these numbers became the central
element for their comments. They further systematised the procedure by
the production of new books on numbers, (?)Isidore’s Liber numerorum
and the Irish Liber de numeris13 being good examples, and by supplying
lists o f significant numbers with additional meanings in their own works
o f exegesis. This whole phenomenon has received widespread attention
from modem scholars, be they historians o f exegesis, o f iconography', oi
mathematics, or o f medieval popular belief and cultures. Numbers as
significant in their own right are to be found everywhere in exegesis and
in modem studies o f these works. But this very ubiquity o f numbers has
obscured the fact that within these works there is another strand ot
thought concerning numbers which should not be lumped-in with
numerology and symbolism, but which stands apart and can be
considered properly philosophical.

9. Cf. F.H. Colson (1914-15); and R.M . Grant (1949).

10. F.C. Burkitt (ed.), The Book of Rules of Tyconius (Texts and Studies III, 1), (Cambridge
1894), V, 55-66.
11. Cf. for example De doctrina Christiana 2, 29 and De Genesi ad litteram 4.2.
12. C f T. O ’Loughlin (1995), p.242.
13. On these works c f Clavis Patrum Latinorum (1961 ed.), η. 1193; and M. Lapidge and
R . Sharpe, A Bibliography of Celtic-Latin Literature 400-1200 (Dublin 1985), n. 778 and
1254.
 This is the theme that the created universe can be considered a
numbered reality and is understood through number —a fact which in
itself testifies to its coming from God - and that this quality o f being
numbered testifies to the divine transcendence. A numbered creation
indicates a God who is beyond number and so beyond the created
imagination’s power o f comprehension. All things are perceived as
having been given ‘measure’ by God and are known through these
measures, but G od is beyond measure and so beyond our understanding.
This theme which is found in a wide range o f writings is in these works
treated separately from the decoding o f individual numbers in the scrip­
tural text. It is linked directly to what was considered the basic question
o f anyone looking at the coming-to-be o f the universe: what is the
relationship between the God and finite existence. But while in studies of
the period this theme has been submerged in the general treatment of
numbers, it can be recovered with precision for it is always connected to,
following the lead o f Augustine,14 one text in Scripture: Wisdom
(.Sapientia Salomonis) 11:21 which was taken to mean that God arranged
all things in number, measure, and weight. Other verses may then be
incorporated into the theme as fits a particular argument, but the text
from Wisdom is always there as the base o f the argument.15

III. Assessing the Significance of Wis 11:21

The first step in highlighting this theme is to look at the text o f Wisdom
in Latin. In the Vulgate it is 11:21 it reads: sed omnia mensura et numero et
pondere disposuisti.16 The Vetus Latina, where it is numbered verse 20, is
almost identical: sed omnia in mensura et numero et pondere disposuisti (or con­
stituisti).17 However, it became so well known as a quotation, and had its
three qualities interchanged with other triads by Augustine18 such as
modus or ordo or species, that it is found in a wide variety o f forms in later
writers, but without these constituting a significant shift from the text.

14. Cf. W. Roach (1941); T. O ’Loughlin (1989); and the very important article by C.
Horn (1994).
15. Cf. H. Krings (1941); and the more recent survey by J. McEvoy (1987) — Prof.
McEvoy examines the roots of the theme before Augustine, Augustine, and then in the
Scholastics, this paper is an attempt to provide a few preliminary stepping stones through
the historical lacuna after Augustine, and perhaps show that the Scholastics did not pick
up the theme randomly from Augustine but received it as an integral part o f their own
tradition.
16. R . Weber’s manual edition.
17. Vetus Latina 11/1, W. Thiele ed. (Freiburg 1977-85), 449-52.
18. C f L. Cilleruelo (1952), p. 23; and McEvoy (1987), p. 102.
 Next we should look at the extent of its use. In Latin writers before
800, where printed editions exist, it is to be found no less than 136
times.19 13 o f these uses pre-date Augustine and in 9 other cases it is used
in a manner not directly relevant to this paper, such as in liturgical or legal
texts, but in the remaining cases it is used with reference to the relation of
the creation to God. It is used no less than 44 times by Augustine (and 1
am not considering cases where it is echoed in similar triads such as has
been examined by Jo sef R ief20) and in the remaining 70 cases it is used in
a way that is clearly dependant on him. Moreover, this figure is but an
indicator o f its importance for it does not take account o f its use in
excerpts o f Augustine, nor the uses o f the less-direct applications of the
verse in Augustine as in the De libero arbitrio or the De uera religione, nor oi
the fact that a sizeable proportion of the commentaries on Genesis from
the period in question still await edition. These uses, founded as they are
on Augustine’s questions about the nature o f the creation, do point to
one fact: this verse is not just another biblical number reference but the
index to a theological theme.

IV. Wis 11:21 in Augustine’s Thought

The significance o f Wisdom 11:21 in the thought of Augustine, and how
it acted as a focus for him o f many Neoplatonic themes, has been exten­
sively studied. It is found throughout his writings, but especially where
he approached the text o f Genesis and for the later tradition of commen­
taries, one treatment, that in De Genesi ad litteram, became classic.”1 There
in the space o f four chapters they found his thought in a way they could
easily appropriate and re-use for themselves. The triad reflects the myste­
rious life o f God and through it he establishes each being and all in beauty
and order. These are the pre-existing creative ideas that provide measure
in every being and give form to materia informa (Wis 11:18)22 and by these
ideas his power is seen to range sweetly over the whole universe (Wis
8:1) (this catena o f texts are found together on numerous occasions in the
later tradition). Existing before the actual creation, number, measure and
weight, are the common properties of all in virtue o f their coming to be
for it is in them that the created things are constituted and arranged. To

19. The statistics are based on an examination o f the citations given in the apparatus to
the edition o f the Vetus Latina, op. cit...
20. J. R ie f (1962), pp. 176-8.
21. De Genesi ad litteram 4, 3-6.
22. Cf. Roach (1941), p. 373; McEvoy (1987), p. 103; and T. O ’Loughlm (1989), p. 34.'
the human being these ideas are o f crucial importance for it establishes its
superiority to matter and his dependence on God. The soul when it
‘looks down’ on matter finds that it has a capacity to measure which
betokens its ability to rise above the flux o f matter and to reach a level of
stability in being that transcends matter. But the soul knows that it too is
mutable and is not an absolute measure and so ‘looks up’, ever higher, to
a measure higher than it until it finally rests in the giver o f measure who
is, and must be, unmeasured. Measure, weight and number are at the base
o f being and function as the fundamentals o f knowing; and in being these
basic principles they are sacramental o f the one who is unknown beyond
them who creates both them and what they measure. God knows
measure, number and weight in himself and it is ‘a wonderful grace, only
given to a few, to move beyond all that is measurable to see the measure
without measure, ... the number without number, and ... the weight
without weight.’23

Before leaving Augustine we should note that this notion plays an

important role in resolving a tension that beset his reflections on the
creation. The creation is good and to be valued, yet it is for use and only
God is to be enjoyed. Again, by knowing the creation we rise to the
knowledge o f God, yet knowing it involves the danger o f distraction
from God and o f idolising it (a theme he explores using Wis 13). He
seems attracted by the notion o f the prior existence o f number, measure
and weight as a way o f avoiding these tensions. Through them one could
wonder at the beauty o f matter, yet knowing that this beauty was not
matter’s beauty, but due to its sharing in these qualities one was drawn
upwards to the soul as measurer. And, the more the soul reflected on
measure, number and weight, and its own quality o f being numbered,
the more it was pointed beyond to their source beyond the whole o f the
creation. In this usage o f the theme it was a means o f affirming the unity
and goodness o f the creation while simultaneously avoiding error.24

23. De Genesi ad litteram 4,3 (all English translations are my own).

24. The danger o f error through the creation’s quality of being numbered and ordered
is a theme that runs parallel to much o f what Augustine says on the topic, but this aspect
o f the danger o f error has received little attention to date; I have examined it, in part, in
his early writings in O ’Loughlin (1992b)
V. The Liber de ordine creaturarum
I shall now look at some instances of the use o f Augustine in the
commentary tradition. What follows is just a sampling which may lead to
others exploring the theme more fully.

The first test-case comes from Ireland. It is the Liber de ordine creaturarum,
(from the seventh century) which seeks to present an orderly account of
the whole creation based on the Genesis creation stories.25 The work is
virtually unstudied despite having the distinction o f being one o f the first
systematic monographs on the creation written after the major Latin
fathers. It begins with a chapter on faith in the Trinity, then moves
through space, and then through time - all the while keeping the model
o f the first week (the hexaemeron) linked to the beginning and end o f the
universe in view (the aetates mundi). Through the use o f these various
ordered numerical realities, in a similar format to that used by Augustine,
it seeks to show that all things are created within an order and that God
acts in a measured way in all his works. This takes concrete form in the
text in its desire to record measurements, extensions, and weights so the
reader may understand the creation and know the divine handiwork in
detail. Having begun with a chapter on the Godhead which takes the
form o f a statement that the author accepts that God exists and which
functions as the book’s primary assumption for all that follows, it
descends through the creation. The first [and the highest and least heavy)
creatures are the ordered ranks o f angels (the spiritual creatures), then the
upper heavens; then the lower heavens; then the devil (this position in
the universe between the earth and the lowest part o f the heavens is the
location o f the ‘aerial animals’ in Augustine); then earthly realities; then
man; then beneath the surface o f the earth, and finally, the future life of
heaven. This topic structure is presented as related to the primary
structure o f reality and as paralleling the First Week:

25. M.C. Diaz y Diaz, Liber de ordine creaturarum: Un anonimo Maudes del siglo I II
(Santiago de Compostela 1972); Clavis Patrum Latinorum, η. 1189; Lapidge and Sharpe.
n.342. In the introduction to his edition (p. 27), Diaz y Diaz held that it was written in
southern Ireland, in Lismore, in the period 680-700 (he dealt with this in greater detail
in Diaz y Diaz (1953)) and R .E . McNally endorsed this view in the preface to his edition
to the Irish anonymous's Commentarius in epistolas Catholicas (CCSL 108B, x). however,
this degree o f precision with regard to anonymous works is open to question - suffice to
say that all the evidence fits with it coming from an Irish centre of learning and from the
period after 630 (the death o f Isidore).
Chapter Time o f Creation The Structure o f the
(i.e. Genesis) Universe

1. Trinity ‘Before’ anything Beyond everything

2. Spiritual Creatures. Day 1. The ordered ranks of the

angels which form a
hierarchy o f spheres.26
3. The waters above the Day 1 Outermost edge of ma­
firmament. (i.e. the original waters of terial universe.27
the abyss).

4. The firmament. Day 2. The outermost visible

reality.

5. Sun and Moon. Day 4. The heavenly bodies.

6. The upper regions and Day 4.
paradise.
7. The lower regions and Day 4.
the atmosphere.
8. The devil and When this took place was a
the demons. major topic o f discussion, here
he places it according to sphere
of activity and he is ‘on the
scene’ in time to begin work
when humans are in the garden
(cf. Lk 10:18).
The sky in which the
heavenly bodies move.
The region beneath the
moon which is subject to
change and the region in
which the weather
exists.
The lowest regions of
the atmosphere - the air
we breath.e

9. Water and the ocean. Day 5. Water natural position is

just below air.

10. The paradise o f Adam. Understood as being produced This is the finest o f earth
on Day 3 and the time of Adam (terra) and so should be
and Eve before the Fall just below water in the
(Gen 2). overall scheme.

11. The terrestrial world. Day 3. What we walk upon.

12. Human nature. Day 6. Humans.

13. Sins and Punishment. After the time in the Garden,
when Fall had taken place.
14. The Fires of Waiting for the eschatological
Purgatory. seventh day.
The fiery places beneath
the earth entered
through special gates.28
The very centre of the
material universe.

15. The future life. Day 7 (in fullest sense). Beyond all material real­
ity; back to the start.
 The fact that he breaks off from the order o f the hexaemeron in some
lapters suggests that the notion o f the spheres o f creation is even more
important than the structure of the biblical narrative: each chapter drops
awn one order from the previous, a process we could imagine as
coming in from the highest to the lowest point in creation and the vilest
part o f matter.2627829 This order is followed strictly from the highest created
^eings to the chapter on the nature of man so that the book has
rogressed by weight in an orderly way. The logical structure ot the book
J that each reality' it treats is ‘weightier’ than all before it. Then there are
the weights o f sin by which God punishes and redeems: those found
eavy with sin stay as far from the Source o f being as possible, being
i ragged ever downwards into matter; while those not ‘weighed down’,
rise up to the future life.30 In this process G od’s judgement is orderly and
lumbered, each reality is weighed carefully in its creation and in its
inality.31 At every step our author has presented each piece o f the
creation as related to the whole. And, within this all act harmoniously
and purposefully because they have been created in a numbered and
jardered way by God.

N ow to its use of Wis 11:21. The De ordine creaturarum begins with a

sequence o f 23 negative statements (without beginning, with limitation

26. The author’s scriptural acuity is seen in the way he carefully searches out the basis
for the nine orders of the celestial hierarchy.
27. I have examined this in detail in O ’lmughlin (1992c) and (1995a).
28. For the notion that the place o f punishment was beneath the surface o f the earth, in
the heaviest place o f the universe, cf. Gregory the Great, Dialogi 4,31,2-4 (A. de Vogue
ed., Dialogues III (Livre IV), [SC 265J. (Paris 1980), however, note my emendation of the
passage in T. O ’Loughlin (1994), p.45; Dom de Vogue in a letter (18 June 1995) has
accepted my suggestion on the reading of this text.
29. For a parallel to this view and for notes on the sources of this view cf. O'Loughlm
(1993b).
30. The notion o f sin as a burden (onus) which ties the soul down to the earth and
prevents it rising to a higher reality is found in many texts of this period. This under­
standing of sin while it does have biblical roots (e.g. Ps 37:5 (LX X numeration). Job 7:20,
Is 1:14, and the notion that the final judgement is a weighing o f sinners: Apoc 6:5) has
clear Neo-platonic elements as well. This topic has received little or no attention, to my
knowledge, as yet from scholars.
31. It should be noted that the author could appeal to many scriptural passages for
support for the notion of all things ordered by weight: on the wind having weight given
it by God, Job 28:25; on the notion of the soul’s weight and its being weighed in
judgement: Ps 37:4 (LXX), Dan 5:27, Job 31:6, Lk 31:34, and 2Cor 4:17; the biblical
material in this work has not been fully studied to date, cf. Diaz y Diaz (1972), p. 38-9.
of place, without temporality, without need, without change, beyond
what a creature can grasp, beyond what an intelligence can understand)
about the Trinity as one God.32 It then contrasts this with creatures who
are made, for God without motion deposes all the things that move (cf.
Wis 8:1), and they in every way that they are ordered and numbered (and
so given limits) are unlike him. Having proceeded negatively towards
God, stressing what God is not and how unlike every creature God is, the
author can begin to survey the order o f creatures in their coming from
God. This progress outwards, as well as the things themselves, occurs in a
way that is comprehensible by number. This idea functions as a principle
appealed to again and again: when you want to understand something, or
understand its relationship to everything else, then seek to know it
weight and measure, and the numbered patterns within it and its activity.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the treatment o f the ocean: it has
such power and strength and weight that it seems beyond our compre­
hension or even to be chaotic. Yet, number is not defeated by the task for
the sea’s mighty forces are describable. This can be seen and known by us
through the study of the tides which show the sea to be orderly and to
have been created in number. But despite his confidence in the principle
the author is prepared to face the reality o f actual human ignorance:

But in this [i.e. our understanding o f the sea] and many similar
cases it must be conceded to our human understanding that we can
do nothing else than cry out to the power and the immensity
(potentiam atque inmensitatem) o f the Creator who ‘has disposed all
things in number and measure and weight’ and for the time being
say with the noble teacher o f the nations ‘For our knowledge is
imperfect and our prophesy is imperfect; but when the perfect
comes ... then I shall understand just as I am understood’ (1 Cor
13:9-10 + 12)33

Here the author has sought to understand the creation, but is aware that
which he can understand, and that by which he understands, alerts him to
his own limitations, and through this points to another who is beyond
measure, immense, and beyond what he can understand.

32. 1,2-3 (85-7).

33. 9,8 (152).
 Mysticism of N umber in the Medieval Period B efore E riugena 407

VI. The Tracts De natura rerum

My second test-case is the two tracts entitled De natura rerum, one by
Isidore34 and the other by Bede which is a re-working o f Isidore.35 These
works are studied primarily for their place in the history o f science where
they are taken as a middle-point between the Rom an encyclopaedists,
such a Pliny, and the recovery of the natural philosophy of Aristotle in
the twelfth century. However, these works also contain an implicit
metaphysics which deserves examination. For their authors the basis of
these works was the belief that the natural order studied was the
handiwork of a Creator. The Creator had created an ordered world and
this order was perfectly reflected in the narrative o f that work in Genesis.
The order first existed in the divine mind, then it came into material
example as these ideas gave form to matter. The human investigator had
therefore two books before him: the ordered reality and the text account
o f this and each pointed to and threw light on the other. Furthermore,
together they revealed something else: the ideas in the mind of God
which were beyond matter. Thus the human observer exists in a double
world: the world around him which he knows directly; and another,
more real, world to which the material world is pointing. Beginning
with the text o f Genesis, once he has understood the language of the text,
he is pointed outwards towards reality, for example, the works of the
third day - the Sun, Moon, and stars. Having read Genesis he now
understands these more fully: he knows that they are not eternal and the
date of their creation; his observation that the Sun rules the day and the
M oon and stars the night has been confirmed by the divine word; he
knows their order is not accidental but given to them; and, he knows
their purpose: they are for light and regulating time. But the text has
another higher meaning in a realm beyond the physical universe and can
be read in a fuller way. Genesis read spiritually is an account o f the
relationship of G od to the universe: God is the giver o f light and ruler ot
all, and all other lights are reflective o f him (the Moon) or are full ot light
as he has given them light (the Stars). N ow the physical realities can be
seen as having another function, they exist in matter as the tokens o f this
higher world. Part o f the function of the physical things is to exist sacra­
mentally to the higher purposes of their Creator. So the text read at one
level is a signum to the things and thus one knows part o f their causality;

34. Traite de la nature, J. Fontaine ed., (Bordeaux 1960); and PL 83, 963-1018.
35. C CSL 123A, 174-234
read at another level it is a signum to that which is beyond the things, and
another part o f the causality of the things is understood. N ow , one can
discover much by beginning with a study o f the things. For example,
observation shows us the perfect regularity o f the heavenly bodies and
adds to our knowledge o f them. But observation is limited in scope and
incomplete, its function is to provide us with signa both to the text and to
something even more real still. Regarding the text, observation proves its
truth and explains the mechanisms by which the heavens can mark the
days, month and years; and regarding a higher reality it points from order
to orderer: in the divine mind the ideas o f the creation are perfectly
ordered. Hence when we read these tracts we must view them as part of
the desire to understand the purposes o f God in creating, they and the
study o f Genesis are parallel tracks o f investigation. Without such studies
into the nature o f things, the creation as divine handiwork and the
revealed narrative will remain cloaked in darkness, but together Genesis
and these studies do not so much reveal nature as that which is beyond
nature.

We can study this inter-relationship in several ways. The most funda­

mental relationship between these tracts and Genesis commentaries is in
their semiotics which are derived from the formalisation o f Augustine’s
method by Eucherius o f Lyons. Augustine had presented a view o f the
study o f nature and the text as mutually revealing one another in the De
doctrina Christiana. This lead Eucherius to list the things o f nature and their
significance in such a way that walking in the countryside or reading the
book one could know the fuller value at each turn. His Formula decoded
the true meaning o f the book and nature: hence all reality pointed to the
really real in the spiritual universe above. In his introduction to his
method, Eucherius said that he wanted to reveal how the one could
progress spiritually by being able to understand the various levels at
which knowledge exists: the physical, ethical, and logical which corre­
spond to the natural, moral, and rational levels o f human existence. And,
by understanding the world in these different ways one, could progress
from the actual to the contemplative order, which was rising from the
world o f practice (the finite material world) to the world o f theoria (the
world o f the divine ideas without matter).36 These threefold divisions
have complex roots, but what is significant for this study is that they were

36. Formula spintalis intelligentiae, praefatio; or a fuller examination o f the Augustinian

roots o f his semiotics, cf. T. O ’Loughlin (1995b).
understood as analogues of number, measure, and weight by
Augustine.37

Another way to explore the relationship o f these tracts to the spiritual

study o f the creation is to examine their textual links to the tradition on
commentaries on Genesis. In Genesis commentaries from after the
period o f Isidore, one o f the works almost always present among the
sources is his De natura rerum; and o f those written after Bede, the latter’s
work is almost invariably present. As the commentators come to each
item in the text, the celestial bodies, flora, fauna, rivers and so forth, they
cite the tract to help in the exegesis by providing an elegant starting point
from which to depart to a higher understanding. That these tracts should
be so convenient to an exegete looking for the deeper meaning in the
text or material reality o f the universe is neither coincidence nor
testimony to the genius o f the commentators who used them. Both
Isidore and Bede wrote major commentaries on Genesis. In these they
stressed, not the literal meaning o f the text and the realities it described,
but the christological meaning which both text and reality pointed to, for
all things were made in and through the Word (cf. Jn 1:3) and had their
existence in him (cf. Acts 17:28), and moreover he was the focus of the
book (cf. Jn 1:45 and 5:46). Hence, when they wrote their tracts, De
natura rerum, the agenda was set by Genesis and these works were a
compliment to their commentaries. We can further explore this
relationship by noting that while physical matters are an important part of
Ambrose’s and Augustine’s commentaries, this matter is omitted by
Isidore and Bede. For these later writers the physical exegesis o f the
Genesis, and so interest in the things Genesis is concerned with, is
presented in their tracts on nature: for instance, chapter after chapter of
Isidore’s De natura rerum follows the sequence o f chapters in Ambrose’s
Exameron.38 Given this relationship to the account o f the creation, we
can see the basic message o f these books as making clear that the material
creation proceeds from God, in its variety and operation it manifests his
mind, and points to a higher world.

So how does the material world point beyond itself to its Creator? It
certainly is not obvious. On first reading these works we appear to find
little other than natural science. However, among the mass o f scriptural

37, Cf. CiUeruelo (1952), p. 23; and McEvoy, (1995a) p.102.

38. I have examined this in detail in T. O ’Loughlin (1995a).
quotations that are used to justify39 or instance40 statements about matter,
we find others that serve as optics for the information presented about the
physical world. There are repeated echoes o f Sir 18:1 ([Deus,] qui uiuit in
aeternum creauit omnia simul); Wis 11:18 ([Deus] creauit orbem tenarum ex
materia informis); the joannine prologue; and Acts 17:28. Bede, more
voluble than Isidore, makes this even clearer by beginning his work with
his synopsis o f Augustine’s theory of the divine action:

The divine work which created and regulates time and space (secula) is
distinguished in a fourfold way:
1. In the things, which in the dispensation of the Word of God, are not
made but are eternal; ‘who predestined us’ as the apostle testifies, ‘to the
kingdom before all the ages’ [cf. Eph 1:5 and 2 Tim 1:9].
2. In the elements of the world which were made at the same time in the
unformed matter (materia informi), [as it is written]: [Sir 18; 1].
3. In those same material things, according to those causes created at the
same time, but which at that time were not yet given form, but which
became the celestial and terrestrial things in the separation process of
the hexaemeron.
4. In the seeds and primordial causes of all these things for the whole
world for the whole course of time. For the Father and the Son work
until now [cf. Jn 5:17] and indeed God feeds the crows and vests the lil­
ies [cf. Lk 12:24 and 27],41*

It may seem strange that in neither work is Wisdom 11:21 quoted, yet
this does not imply that it has not influenced these writers’ under­
standing. This can be seen in several ways. The works begin with a study
o f the divisions o f time and precise information on the movements o f the
heavenly bodies. These chapters stress the numerical quality o f these
things. The heavens conform to numerical patterns, their movements are

39. I have in mind those chapters of the text where a statement is made about physical
reality, solely on the basis that this is mentioned in Scripture. Thus ‘the waters above the
heavens’ became a physical concept by way of these tracts solely on the basis that they are
mentioned in Genesis.
40. This is where an idea is taken over from antiquity as a fact, and which then is elabo­
rated by the quotation of a scriptural passage which has been read as obviously in
agreement with it. Thus the notion of a three-continent world is taken from antiquity,
and to the writer this is obviously in agreement with the division o f the world between
the three sons of Noah (Gen 10).
41. 1 (192); the apparatus given in the edition is testimony to how closely Bede had read
Augustine on the nature of creation.
o f Adam in seven weights (pondera) by which he receives his corporeal
nature and then adds an eight, the soul, from which he receives his
celestial nature. This draws, of course, on an ancient piece o f lore from 2
Enoch,44 but here it is expressed in terms o f the creation as the disposition
of ordered, numbered weights.45 The implication is that human nature,
exemplified in Adam, is to be understood as an ordered whole which
manifests in its material order the divine ideas. As these come into
material existence each receives an appropriate weight, and acts accord­
ingly. Human nature, therefore, is revealed by Wis 11:21, and reveals the
one who gives weight and number to his ideas in creating. There is a
danger we might read too much into a catechetical text such as this, but
at the very least, it is a witness to a fragment o f the legacy o f Augustine.

VIII. Conclusion
A recurring theme in this early medieval material is that somehow
number takes man beyond the visible and the material. Num ber is before
the things o f our realm, the external creation, and above it is dignity as
the pre-existing divine pattern: to encounter number is to encounter the
very thoughts in the mind of God. When the numbers o f the creation are
known one can see reality in the depths o f its design and meet not the
things made but the mind o f the maker. Numbers do not belong to the
world o f praxis, but that o f the contemplation and rest o f God.46 Thus
the interest in numbers is finally a mysticism o f sorts: for it was pursued
and desired as a route to a more direct encounter with God that could
by-pass the external world and dwell immediately in the divine ideas
which were the source o f the creation. In the texts we have been

44. 2 Enoch 30:8-9 [long recension] (I have used F.I. Andersen’s translation in J.H .
Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (London 1983), 1, 150; note that there
is no notion o f a ‘weight’ in the text, so this aspect of the component parts of Adam [to
be read as Everyman] is, in all probability, from its Latin environment. It should be noted
that we have the text o f 2 Enoch only as it survives in Old Slavonic.
45. It is this particular aspect of the literature about Adam that I want to draw attention
to here, but it shuld be noted that discussion about the component parts o f Adam is a
much wider topic. In many medieval sources we find the theme o f Adam being made up
of four, seven, or eight ‘parts’, cf. M. Forster (1908) and (1921); and D. Wasserstein
(1988); and R .E. McNally (1959), pp. 26-7 where this material is put in a larger context.
An examination of some o f the philosophical presuppositions o f this material (e.g. how
does it relate to Timaeus 82 a-b) is long overdue.
46. This is a theme that Eucherius of Lyons had sketched out in the Praefatio to his
Formula (p. 5) and which became a commonplace in the early medieval period.
examining this is not expressed with the lyrical beauty o f Augustine in
the Confessiones when his soul wishes to seek ever higher, nor with the
technical language of Eriugena when he speaks o f the causae primordiales,
but the intention o f understanding the depths o f the mind ot God (cf.
R o m 11:34) in creating is there. Thus the desire to know the numbers
underlying the creation is not only a desire for knowledge about the
creation, but for a union of minds between the human investigator and
the Creator.47

So what have we been examining? These are but the bits and pieces o f a
tradition derived from Augustine. The authors within this tradition had
little or no idea of its earlier roots, probably little or no grasp o f its signifi­
cance in Augustine, and used it in a way that seems trite and repetitive in
comparison. But even if we are only looking at the pygmies after the age
o f giants, let us do so with respect for their work. We study this theme in
Augustine, later we find it again in full-bloom in Eriugena and later
writers such as Grosseteste, in these it is part o f large speculative canvass
and its nuances and details are drawn out with care. In the works of the
fifth to the early-ninth centuries it is really little more than notes and
easily seen as no more than number-lore. But this, I think, is too harsh.
These fragments testify, in very adverse circumstances, to their desire to
speculate, even if their results are less than spectacular. At the very' least,
where the theme is found it should alert us to the possibility that their
interest in numbers is more than medieval quaintness. It is worth
remembering that the works I have cited here were being copied and
studied in the mid-ninth century in the very milieu in which Eriugena
began to write. We are often tempted to use the image o f a desert for this

47. This notion of a union o f the human mind of the investigator and that of God is too
diffuse to be examined here. The basis of it lies in Paul’s descriptions of the limits ot the
human mind in R om and 1 Cor: there those who cannot see God but only the material
creation are suffering the punishment of a base mind (Rom 1:28) and this causes them
other moral weakness and blindness (Rom 7:23 and 25). Moreover, this mind can be
contrasted with the mind given by the Spirit which can see the law o f God (Rom 8:6-
7). While the human mind is always less than the Creator’s mind for it was there before
all else (Rom 11:34ff and 1 C or 2:15 if, using Is 40:13), there is a hint that in Christ, who
takes away the base mind, that these ‘depths o f God’ can be known. [It might legitimately
be asked why 1 have not pursued this theme of mysticism directly and at length, my
answer lies in the fact that so little w'ork has been done on this period, both in publishing
texts and in analytical studies, that at this time to do more than point out where there are
areas for investigation seems premature.]
period intellectually, I prefer the image o f a winter cold-bed, for it was
these hard-working, if not very imaginative school-masters that kept the
Latin tradition alive.48

University o f Wales, Lampeter

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I. Primary Sources
A. Biblica:
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48. I wish to record my gratitude to the following: to Prof. H.J. Frede of the Vetus
Latina Institut in Beuron for enabling me to use that institute’s wealth of research
materials; to my colleagues in the Milltown Institute, Dublin, for discussing several points
of this paper with me —the usual disclaimer applies; equally to Prof. Mairtin O Muirchu,
Director of the School o f Celtic Studies of the Dublin Institute o f Advanced Studies for
his on-going support by way of a Research Scholarship which has enabled me to pursue
this research; and to Dr Fergus D ’Arcy, Dean of Arts in University College Dublin, for
a Travel Grant which enabled me to visit Beuron.
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