The literal sense in the interpretation of the Scriptures according to Saint Thomas Aquinas

the Expositio super Job ad litteram as a model

Abstract

The literal sense as the basis of medieval biblical exegesis goes back centuries before Thomas Aquinas. It is the basis of three other levels of biblical reading that formed the medieval exegetical tradition, namely, the allegorical, the tropological and the anagogical. However, in the thirteenth century, when theology reached its status as science, according to the Aristotelian model, it was fundamental for Thomas to rethink the literal exegesis of the Scriptures as a source for the development of theology. From the Thomasian criterion of subalternance, the Scriptures, like theology in general, are considered subaltern knowledge to divine science, while biblical exegesis, which proceeds by probable reasoning, is subordinated to theology, which proceeds by demonstrative reasoning. Through the investigation of texts by Thomas, especially his commentary on the Book of Job, it can be understood that the literal sense, which is the historical sense, or the biblical narrative, does not constitute a mere exposition of the letter of the sacred authors, but it implies a wider reading, to the point of admitting that the metaphor and other tropes, in their first meaning, belong to the literal sense. For these and related reasons the Expositio Super Iob ad Litteram becomes a model for the use of the literal sense in the scholastic period.