IN WESTERN icons of the Annunciation, the Blessed Virgin Mary is almost invariably depicted holding and looking up from the Book of the Scriptures: this is in contrast to Eastern icons, in which Mary is generally busy weaving.  Western imagery emphasizes the role of Our Lady as an archetype of what might be termed “contemplative exegesis”, a reading and pondering of the biblical text that leads to experience of the living God.

IN OTHER words, “contemplative exegesis” is less interested in the search for historical, linguistic, or even doctrinal information concerning God than in the quest for authentic experience of God: the biblical text is never an end in itself; rather is is a means of divine union and theosis.  This method of interpreting the Bible is always rooted in the practice of lectio divina; and the hermenutic methods that are applied and the “inner meanings” (logoi) that are discovered in the text always reflect the aspirations and the culture of Christian contemplation.

THE techniques and tools of this craft, and the threefold or fourfold “levels” of meaning the Scriptures were believed to posess are based on the following:

1. the world-view Plato described in his Parable of the Caves (Republic).  Through the art of contemplation (theoria) one can peer beneath changing surface appearances to behold the eternal world from which we come and to which we must return. For Plato, contemplative vision and moral/ethical behavior (especially society and politics) are inextricably intertwined.  Virtuous acts both prepare for contemplation and are its natural fruit. 

2.  In the late first century B.C. Philo described communities of Jewish ascetics who both typify and search for different levels of meaning in the Jewish scriptures.  The Palestinian Essenes seek ethical and moral instructionat from the Torah and Writings; while the Egyptian Therapeutae seek deeper mysteries through allegorical interpretations.

3. The Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria, adds that Christ must dispel the darkness before the soul can rise to true wisdom.  In rising it discovers four levels of meaning in the the Scriptures (and in all of reality):

4. Origen believed that we must either employ allegory or be scandalized by many biblical texts. 

5. A medieval poem describes the interrelationship between the literal and mystical/allegorical senses:

THE patristic origins of this approach to biblical exegesis and its continuous preservation in western monasticism are described by the late Dom Jean Leclercq, O.S.B. in chapters 4-5 of his classic work, L’Amour des letters et le desire de Dieu (The Love of Learning and the Desire for God).  He decribes several great themes that recur regularly throughhout the monastic culture that inherited and tended this method of exegesis: these themes both reflect the presuppositions and therfore heavily color the findings of those who approached the scripture in this way.  His list of the chief themes includes the following:

1) COMPUNCTION = LONGING for HEAVEN
          The HEAVENLY JERUSALEM

2) ASCENT INTO HEAVEN: THE TRANSFIGURATION

3) FELLOWSHIP with the ANGELS

4) The GIFT of TEARS

5)  INFINITE LONGING  (epektasis)

6) SOBER INEBRIATION: FORETASTE of UNION

7) REST and LEISURE

This Webpage was created for a workshop held at Saint Andrew's Abbey, Valyermo, California in 1998....x....  ’ “”.