Colloquia Maruliana ..., Vol. 15 , 2006.
Original scientific paper
Marulić’s Tropology in the Light of Patristic Allegoresis (II.)
Miroslav Palameta
Abstract
The paper Marulić’s Tropology in the Light of Patristic Allegoresis (II) is actually the second part of a text already published under the same name. The present text continues with the interpretation of Marulić’s explication of the events sung in the Bible, alongside cantos IV, V and VI of the Davidiad, the events that is from the liberation of the city of Keila, via David’s flight from Saul, to the defeat at Gelboa and David’s lament for Saul’s and Jonathan’s deaths, that is, to the burial of their bodies in the city of Jabesh.
The spiritual meanings that the poet detects in these events can be grouped into several thematic sequences, mutually interwoven from the comments to the initial canto, by which Marulić’s Tropology is seen in its coherence, unlike similar texts, which are traditionally fragmentary. Here, then, adumbrations of the life of Christ are revealed, particularly the temptations and snares that were set for him by the scribes and the Pharisees in order to accuse and condemn him, the diffusion of the gospel among the pagans, and the creation of a Catholic church, its fight against heresy and the downfall of the Kingdom of the Jews, or the elapse of the time of the Law and the Prophets. The linkage of Old and New Testaments remains the key highway of spiritual meanings. In the finding of mystical significations, Marulić’s versified and expanded Biblical model is often treated as the level of historical meaning. In this work it is seen that this expansion in the versions of the Davidiad is inspired from the tradition of Patristic Latinity as is the Tropology itself, and that in themselves they retain the signals of allegorical discourse. The poet backs up these places in some cases with clear Christian and moral viewpoints, and they become visibly marked as allegorical discourse. The work refers to these places only in those cases in which they are directly linked with the contents of the Tropology of the mentioned cantos.
The paper confirms that, of all the texts that dealt with the interpretation of the occult meanings in the Book of Kings, Bede’s Allegorica expositio in Samuelem is closest in its explications to the contents of Marulić’s Tropology, not only in connection with Cantos IV, V and VI, but from the very beginning as well. Unlike Hrabanus Maurus, Walahfridus Strabo and Angelomus of Luxueil, who directly relied on Bede’s interpretations, which ended with the death of Saul, Marulić’s relationship with Bede was rather more subtle, and can be identified only in the implications of the transformational procedures connected with certain places.
Paying attention to Marulić’s well-known comment about the difficulties of precisely locating Biblical place names, the paper systematically follows in both the Tropology and in the corresponding verses the way in which he deals with the obstacles mentioned. It is determined that the poet mainly relied on data that were supplied by St Jerome and that in catalogue form were collected in his writings De situ et nominibus locorum Hebraicorum and Excerpta de aliquot Palestinae locis. Also, as is shown in the paper, he derived his short descriptions of the places from the etymology that was used by the Patristic tradition or from the occult meanings that Christian exegetes showed in their interpretations to do with certain place names.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
2910
URI
Publication date:
22.4.2006.
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