Ralph Niger and the Books of Kings

Summary

The commentary by Ralph Niger on the Books of Samuel and Kings survives in a single copy kept in the library of Lincoln Cathedral. In this work, Niger sets about providing a complex literal gloss on these historical books of the Bible, as well as using allegorical, tropological (or moral), and anagogical (referring to superior things) interpretations. The exposition of all possible literal meanings, with a view to etymology, and the lack of any systematic arrangement account for the unusual length of this commentary, which fills two volumes (MSS 25 and 26) of 188 and 174 folios respectively, the text being written in two columns of sixty lines each. The way Ralph Niger stacks up different layers of interpretation may baffle the reader, even when taking into account the rules of the genre, and his approach is often obscured by ambiguity. A number of indications, however, show that he conceived his commentary as dominated by tropological interpretation. In his universal chronicle, having just written about the prophetic writings of Joachim of Fiore and of Geoffrey of Auxerre, former abbot of Clairvaux, on the Apocalypse, he refers to this earlier work as Moralia Regum, among other works of his, including an epithome of the Old Testament, as well as commentaries on Chronicles and Ezra. In a general address to the Roman cardinals placed at the beginning of MS 25, he explains that since the varieties of governments find their origin in the morality of men, he has chosen from the start to study the moralia of kings, whose authority and example provide instruction for all others, as a community and as individuals. A few lines further down, he states that since the movements of the soul spring from morals, and since the rights of governments proceed from the movements of princes, he considers it a useful endeavour, in order to distinguish the one from the other, to discuss the moralia regum, for there is no doubt that governments (regiminum moderamina) are formed according to them. In both cases, Niger refers to the moral actions of kings. In the following sections of the commentary, however, moralia is used in wider contexts. For instance, in Book II, on 1 Sam 7, 5, Niger explains that having left the house of Sacred Scripture, Samuel taught moralia by the example of his life.