Remigius of Auxerre

English

Verse 26. Let us make a human to our image and likeness. Whereas he made the rest by commanding, God — as though about to make the greatest thing, and one to be preferred to all that he had made — says, as though by a kind of council: let us make. And although some say that this is to be referred to the angels, it is better referred to the holy Trinity.

Draft English (Claude), awaiting Wilson · cc-by

Latin

PL 131, col. 56D · pd

Notes

⚠ Anchor note: this is a comment on Gen 1:26, not on Gen 1:1–5. It is on the daf under the second clause of the anchor rule — it argues the same philological question the Elohim of Gen 1:1 raises, whether a plural form of speech about God implies a plurality in God — and is anchored on Gen 1:2 beside that material. Three sentences, and the middle one is the most useful thing on the Latin half of this daf. Quasi quodam concilio dicit: Faciamus — as though by a kind of council he says, let us make — is Bereshit Rabbah 8:3's be-mi nimlakh, with whom did he take counsel, in a Latin word; and the third sentence records, without naming anyone, that some say it is to be referred to the angels. That is the rabbinic bench's own primary answer, reported at Auxerre about 890 as a live opinion among Latin readers and rejected only comparatively — melius tamen, it is better referred to the Trinity, not: it is impossible. Remigius is the one Latin witness here who neither refutes the angel reading nor accepts it, and the mildness is the evidence: by the end of the ninth century the reading is in the schools as an option, and nobody on this daf says where it came from.

Threads

• → parallel · Bereshit Rabbah
  The same question in one word each. Remigius: 'quasi quodam concilio dicit: Faciamus' — as though by a kind of council he says, let us make. Bereshit Rabbah: 'be-mi nimlakh', with whom did he take counsel. Both take the change of formula to imply a consultation and then have to say with whom; and Remigius adds the line that shows the Latin bench knew there was more than one answer available — 'quod, licet quidam ad angelos referendum dicant, melius tamen ad sanctam Trinitatem refertur'. Some do refer it to the angels, at Auxerre about 890, and he neither names them nor refutes them.
• ← echoes · Hugh of St Victor
  The same two-reading structure two hundred and forty years apart, and the interval shows the angel reading losing ground without ever being refuted. Remigius: some refer it to the angels, but it is better referred to the holy Trinity. Hugh: he speaks to the angels, by whose ministry perhaps the body was formed — or, what is better, take it as the counsel of the Trinity. Both put the angels first and prefer the Trinity comparatively, neither argues against the angels, and by Comestor's Historia scholastica forty years after Hugh the option is simply not mentioned.