ABSTRACT

In the medieval monastic tradition, scriptural exegesis becomes an internal spiritual exercise aimed at purifying the soul and fulfilling its yearning for union with God through love. It is a specifically devotional or affective form of mysticism, grounded in biblical exegesis. In terms of modern critical methods, such a manner of reading Scripture appears to be wholly subjective, and therefore unamenable to objective or critical scrutiny. In the light of the medieval monastic understanding of the soul and its modes of knowledge, modern methods of biblical scholarship are rendered largely redundant, and so the whole question of scriptural exegesis is reopened. This chapter focuses on the short treatise of Aelred of Rievaulx entitled On Jesus at the Age of Twelve. Human history stands at the threshold of sacred time exemplified in ritual remembrance. The meaning of the text is transformed through meditation into action, or the mysteries of the temple in Jerusalem become the good works in Nazareth.