Remigius of Auxerre

English

He divided the light from the darkness on this day: because in this age the sons of God, that is, the sons of Seth, were separated from the impious generation of Cain, whose evening was the multiplied iniquity of men, that God might bring on the flood.

Fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt · cc-by

Latin

PL 131, col. 58C · pd

Notes

The same commentator, the same verse, and a wholly different reading a few columns later, because Remigius runs the six days a second time as the six ages of the world. On the second pass the division of light from darkness is a datable event in Genesis: the separation of the sons of Seth from the line of Cain, with the multiplied iniquity of men as its evening and the flood following. It is the most concrete form the moral reading takes anywhere on the Latin bench — not the just in general, but two named genealogies — and it is exactly the move Bereshit Rabbah does not make, since for R. Yanai and R. Abahu the light and the darkness are deeds and not families.

Threads

• → echoes · Isidore of Seville
  The same six-day allegory carried from the individual life to the history of the world: Isidore's first day is the light of faith and the dividing of the just from sinners, Remigius' is the separation of the sons of Seth from the generation of Cain, with the flood as its evening. The scheme is Isidore's, the datable content is not.
• → contests · Remigius of Auxerre
  One commentator, one verse, two incompatible readings a few columns apart, and no attempt to reconcile them: on the literal pass the darkness is a work of God made so that men might rest, and on the allegorical pass the darkness is the impious line of Cain that God drowned. The Latin bench's habit of running the six days twice is what allows the same writer to hold both.