Writings
During his long academic career, Remigius wrote a number of glossaries and marginal commentaries on a wide variety of texts, both of classical and Christian origin. His glosses, which borrowed freely from earlier scoliasts, are of very great interest to the student of medieval Latin philology. His commentary on the Bible includes work on the Book of Genesis, and the Book of Psalms (his Ennarationes in Psalmos). He also wrote on the grammar of Priscian, Donatus, Phocas, and Eutyches. His favoured classical texts include works by Terence, Juvenal, and Caelius Sedulius, the Disticha Catonis, and ' Ars de nomine, as well as the later commentary of Bede/Beda. However, he is best remembered for his contribution to, and collection of, commentaries on the Opuscula Sacra and De Consolatione Philosophiae of Boethius, and the De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii et de septem Artibus liberalibus libri novem, or On the Wedding Day of Philology and Mercury and of the Seven Liberal Arts, in Nine Books, of Martianus Capella.
Remigius wrote his commentaries mostly for the benefit of his pupils, explaining the meaning and significance of texts in a dispassionate, concise way, placing emphasis on grammatical structures and linguistic peculiarities. Like most scholars of the Carolingian period, he had great respect for philosophy, particularly that of Plato and the Neo-Platonists that followed. He was an avid teacher of the Seven Liberal Arts, with emphasis on music and dialectic, indicating that he, like so many Carolingians, embraced classical virtues. However, he was also a devout Christian, and thus prone to using philosophical texts to clarify and make sense of certain aspect of Christian theology. Thus his commentaries examine the allegories and symbols in the texts in a way that reflects the older philosophies from which they are derived, but in a way that could be applied to the rituals and theology of the Church. His synthesis of Classical and Christian thought was in no way unprecedented, but in compiling the commentaries of other thinkers he perpetuated that early medieval inclination.
Read more about this topic: Remigius Of Auxerre
Famous quotes containing the word writings:
“In this part of the world it is considered a ground for complaint if a man’s writings admit of more than one interpretation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Even in my own writings I cannot always recover the meaning of my former ideas; I know not what I meant to say, and often get into a regular heat, correcting and putting a new sense into it, having lost the first and better one. I do nothing but come and go. My judgement does not always forge straight ahead; it strays and wanders.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Accursed who brings to light of day
The writings I have cast away.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)