Angilmo di Luxeuil

ANGILMO DI LUXEUIL. - Benedictine exegete, among the best of the 9th century, d. around 855. He was trained under a certain Mellinus (PL 115, 108), and taught temporarily at the palatine school of Emperor Lothair. Having returned to his monastery of Luxeuil, he devoted himself entirely to biblical study. There have come down to us from him (PL 115, 107-628): Commentarius in Genesin; Enarrationes in 4 libros Regum; Enarrationes in Cantica Canticorum (dedicated to Lothair); his commentary on the four Gospels, which he mentions (ibid., 108), is lost.

He adopted the method, not unusual at the time, of compilation or "Stromata": he drew on the written tradition (Jerome, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Isidore, Bede, Rabanus Maurus), sometimes making extracts from it, sometimes summarizing its sense; he inserted explanations received from the oral tradition (Mellinus) "et quae in tomis penes nos invenire non potui" (ibid., 110). Although he knew the sevenfold interpretation of Holy Scripture (ibid., 245-46), he preferred to expound Genesis and Kings "iuxu iugitatem triplicis divisionis", that is, in the historical, allegorical, and moral sense (ibid., 110, 246); in the Song of Songs, however, "nihil... historialiter requiras, sed flores allegoriarum cum morali intellectu investiges" (ibid., 554).

Adalberto Metzinger