L/V 10 Tip of the Day #69 Quadriga and dilatatio

Another tip of the day (TOTD) series for Logos/Verbum 10. They will be short and often drawn from forum posts. Feel free to ask questions and/or suggest forum posts you'd like to see included. Adding comments about the behavior on mobile and web apps would be appreciated by your fellow forumites. A search for "L/V 10 Tip of the Day site:community.logos.com" on Google should bring the tips up as should this Reading List within the application.

This tip is inspired by the forum post: Quadriga - Logos Forums 

Quadriga is an ancient form of Bible analysis based on the four senses of scripture, which I describe as:

• what does it say (literal meaning)
• what am I to believe (allegorical/typological meaning)
• how am I to act (moral/tropological meaning)
• what am I to hope for (anagogic/eschatological meaning)

The original poster provides a fuller description drawn from online sources:

• How to Preach Using the Fourfold Method - Holy Joys
• Theology Thursday: Reading Scripture with the Quadriga – Remnants of Wit (wordpress.com)
• Rehabilitating the Quadriga – Theopolis Institute

I suggested the following Logos resources:

• Leithart, Peter J. Deep Exegesis: The Mystery of Reading Scripture. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009.
• Reventlow, Henning Graf. History of Biblical Interpretation: From Late Antiquity to the End of the Middle Ages. Edited by Susan Ackerman and Tom Thatcher. Translated by James O. Duke. Vol. 2. Society of Biblical Literature Resources for Biblical Study. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009.
• Levy, Ian Christopher. Introducing Medieval Biblical Interpretation: The Senses of Scripture in Premodern Exegesis. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2018.

Coincidentally, at the time of the post on quadriga, I was reading Smith, Randall B. Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas (A Beginner’s Guide). Edited by Matthew Levering. Renewal within Tradition. Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2016. It describes a method of preaching that begins by dividing the passage into key words (divisio), then expands upon those word via dilatatio.

[quote]

Both the Ars concionandi and Robert’s Forma praedicandi list eight methods of dilatatio. According to both manuals, the eight ways the various parts of a divisio set forth in a “declaration of parts” can be “dilated” or developed in a sermon are these:

1. By proposing a discussion based on a noun as it occurs in definitions or classifications (proponendo orationem pro nomine, sicut fit in diffinitionibus seu quibuscumque notificationibus).
2. By subdivisions of the original divisio (per divisionem).
3. By reasoning or argumentation (ratiocinando vel argumentando).
4. By “chaining” together concordant authorities (per auctoritates concordantes).
5. By setting up a series running from the positive through the comparative and arriving finally at the superlative in the manner of “good, better, best” (ut ponendo superlativum curratur ad positivum et comparativum).
6. By devising metaphors through the properties of a thing (excogitando metaphoras per proprietetem rei).
7. By expounding the thema in diverse ways accordingly to the literal, allegorical, tropological, and/or anagogical senses (exponere thema diversimode: historice, allegorice, moraliter, anagogice).
8. By a consideration of causes and their effects (per causas et effectus).

Randall B. Smith, Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas (A Beginner’s Guide), ed. Matthew Levering, Renewal within Tradition (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2016), 114.

Note that 7 is the quadriga.

Both historical methods provide examples of how Logos/Verbum history of interpretation and examples of interpretation through historical sermons can enhance our Bible study skills.

Another recommended book to bring us up to the Reformation is: Ngien, Dennis. Fruit for the Soul: Luther on the Lament Psalms. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015.