Remigius of Auxerre
PL 131, col. 55C
English
Allegorically, in what is said, In the beginning God made heaven and earth, by the name of 'beginning' we may not inappropriately understand the Son of God, as he himself said of himself to the Jews: I am the beginning, who also speak to you (John 8:25). For God the Father is a beginning, but not from a beginning, since he was not made or created by the Father but begotten; through which Beginning God the Father created heaven and earth, that is, the heavenly and the earthly. For by 'heaven' are signified the heavenly, or those leading a heavenly life; by 'earth', those gaping after earthly business. Both of these were created through the Beginning, because when Jesus Christ was born it became plain who were heavenly and who were earthly.
Fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt · cc-by
Latin
Allegorice quod dictum est: in principio fecit Deus coelum et terram, nomine principii Filium Dei non incongrue possumus accipere, sicut ipse de se Judaeis dixit: ego principium qui et loquor vobis (Joan. VIII, 28) . Deus enim Pater principium est, sed non de principio, quia a Patre non factus nec creatus, sed genitus est: per quod principium Deus Pater coelum et terram creavit, id est coelestes et terrenos. Per coelum enim coelestes sive coelestem vitam ducentes: per terram vero terrenis negotiis inhiantes signantur. Qui utrique per principium creati sunt, quia nato Jesu Christo patuit qui essent coelestes, quique terreni.
PL 131, col. 55C · pd
Notes
A distinction made in passing that nobody else on this daf bothers with: the Father too is a beginning — but not from a beginning, since he is not made or created but begotten. Remigius has noticed that if 'in the beginning' names the Son because the Son is a principium, the word will also fit the Father, and he heads it off with the credal formula. The rest is the standard identification with John 8:25 and then the ecclesial reading, in which heaven and earth are the heavenly-minded and the earthly-minded and the division became visible only at the Incarnation. Set beside R. Yudan's 'to this one it is fitting to call God', the two benches are doing the same thing with the same clause — asking what may properly be predicated of the creator, and answering out of the word order.
The Beginning is the Son
Threads
- → echoes · Wigbod
The same identification with the same proof text, and Remigius adds the guard the dialogue does not have: God the Father too is a beginning, but not from a beginning, since he is begotten of none. Once 'in the beginning' names the Son because the Son is a principium, the word will fit the Father as well, and only Remigius notices. - → parallel · Bereshit Rabbah
Both benches ask what may properly be predicated of the creator and answer it out of the first verse's word order. R. Yudan in the name of Akilas: to this one it is fitting to call God — because he acted first and was named afterwards, unlike a king acclaimed before he has built anything. Remigius: the Father is a beginning, but not from a beginning. The rabbinic argument is about the order of the words in the sentence and the Latin about the order of the persons in God, and both are reading the same three words. - ← echoes · Bruno of Segni
The same identification of the Son with the principium of Gen 1:1 from the same verse of John — 'ego principium qui et loquor vobis' — in Auxerre about 890 and at Segni about 1090. It is the most stable single move on the Latin bench and it is what makes the three-term reading possible at all: without a person in the second word there is no triad to complete.