Sum quod eram, nec eram quod sum
Sum quod eram, nec eram quod sum is the beginning of a Latin theological riddle that can be traced back to literary and architectural inscriptions since the 12th century. The full text of the single line hexameter is:
- Sum quod eram, nec eram quod sum; nunc dicor utrumque.
- “I am what I was but wasn't what I am; now my name is both. "
Occurrence
Inscriptions
The Minden bishop chronicle of the Dominican Hermann von Lerbeck , written before 1398, quotes the riddle as a portal inscription on the Sigward Church in Idensen, built around 1130 . The inscription is no longer there.
The south portal of the Notre-Dame church in Cluny , built around 1200, was probably adorned with a coronation of Mary . Until 1913 the Sum quod eram could be read there as an inscription.
In the tympanum of the closed portal of the Charterhouse of Miraflores in Burgos , built between 1441 and 1484, the saying surrounds a sculpture of the Mother of God with the child.
Literary quotes
In the earlier St. De laudibus beatae Mariae by Richard von Saint-Laurent , ascribed to Albertus Magnus and written in the middle of the 13th century, the riddle is related to Christ and Mary in parallel (Book XII, Chapter VI, § IX).
The Lutheran theologian Johannes Wigand put the word in 1569 as the motto on the title page of his Christological work De communicatione idiomatum . The Lutheran theologian Johann Gerhard quotes it in his Loci theologici (1657) in a Latin version extended by a second line, and in two Greek versions.
Resolutions
Christological dissolution
As a self-statement of Jesus Christ , the riddle relates to the doctrine of two natures : “I am what I was: the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity , but was not what I am now since my incarnation : a person. Now my name is both God and man. "
Marian dissolution
As Mary's self- statement , the riddle relates to the virgin birth : “I am what I was: a virgin, but I was not what I am now: mother. Now my name is both: virgin and mother. "
Modern interpretation
Based on the traditional inscription on the Sigward Church in Idensen, the riddle - reduced to its first half - is often understood as the personal motto of Bishop Sigward von Minden and interpreted in individual psychological terms : the person as a pilgrim on the way to his true self.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Pilgrim's Guide to the Sigwardsweg
- ↑ cf. Aenigmata Nicolai Reusneri
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↑ Various sources supplement the one-liner to the distich :
- Idensen: Tene, praebe juste, prudenter, honeste. - “Own and give justly, wisely and honestly.”
- Piccolomini : Primo virgo, secundo mater, tertio virgo et mater. - “First virgin, second mother, third virgin and mother.”
- Reusner: Mater homo; pater est mi sine fine Deus. - “The mother is a man; Father is God to me without end. ”
- Johann Gerhard: Ignoras nisi me stirpe ab utraque tenes. - "You will not guess if you do not state that I am of two parentage." - ^ Sigward Church: Sum quod eram
- ↑ Calvin Kendall: The Allegory of the Church. Romanesque Portals and their Verse Inscriptions . Toronto 1998, p. 214
- ↑ Hanns Peter Neuheuser: Approaches to sacred art: narratio and institutio of the medieval Christ birth image . Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2001, p. 166
- ↑ a b c passage in the book De laudibus beatae Mariae
- ^ Passus in Johann Gerhard, Loci theologici , De persona et officio Christi
- ↑ cf. District of Nienburg / Weser , resolution on cost sharing on Sigwardsweg , April 20, 2009
