Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 2.djvu/78

66 made for man; then it tells how man was made and set in the way of righteousness and discipline; after that, how man fell; and finally how he was restored (reparatus)"

In these first little chapters of his Prologue, Hugo has grouped his topics suggestively. The world was made for man, and therefore the account of its creation is needed in order to understand man. Moreover, that man's body exists for his spirit's sake, at once suggests that a significance beyond the literal meaning is likely to dwell in that account of the material creation which enables us to understand man. The soul needs instruction and guidance; and God in creating the world for man surely had in view his most important interests, which were not those of his mortal body, but those of his soul. So the creation of the world subserves man's spiritual interests, and the divine account of it carries spiritual instruction. The allegorical significance of the world's creation, which answers to man's spiritual needs, is as veritable and real as the facts of the world's material foundation, which answers to the needs of his body. Thus symbolism is rooted in the character and purpose of the material creation; it lies in the God-implanted nature of things; therefore the allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures corresponds to their deepest meaning and the revealed plan of God.

These principles underlie Hugo's exposition of the Christian sacraments, whose unperfected prototypes existed in the work of the Creation. No fact of sacred history, no single righteous pre-Christian observance, was unaffiliated with them. An adequate understanding of their nature involves a full knowledge not only of Christian doctrine, but of all other knowledge profitable to men as Hugo clearly indicates in the remaining portion of his Prologue: "Whence it appears how much divine Scripture in subtle profundity surpasses all other writings, not only in its matter but in the way of treating it. In other writings the words alone carry meaning: in Scripture not only the words, but the things may mean something. Wherefore just as a knowledge of the words is needed in order to know what things are signified, so a knowledge of the things is needed in order to determine their mystical signification of other things which have been or ought to be done. The