A BESTA QUE SURGE DA TERRA: REPRESENTAÇÃO DOS ANIMAIS NA EXEGESE ECLESIOLÓGICA DO APOCALIPSE

Abstract

Throughout the Middle Ages, biblical exegesis became an important genre of writing in clerics formation and the analysis of these texts has much to contribute to understanding the process of dispute surrounding the construction of a Catholic Christian orthodoxy. The biblical commentaries that dealt with John's Book of Revelation are a privileged place for this study, since the history of reading that fell on this biblical scripture between the 2nd and 12th centuries is marked by an ecclesiological interpretation that places it in a central place in the argumentation of Christian authors against dissident groups. What stands out in this process is the exegetical tradition's use of the animals that appear in this text, which did not shy away from associating threatening characters such as beasts and serpents with those considered to be deviant from the faith - sinners, schismatics, false prophets etc. It is important to understand how the zoomorphic universe linked to this literature was organized in the face of the active role of this biblical book as a conveyor of the “true faith”. The Commentary on the Apocalypse, written by Beatus Liébana in the Iberian peninsula at the end of the 8th century and widely copied until the 13th century, will be our starting point for this analysis, which will focus its reflections on the uses and appropriations that this exegetical tradition made of knowledge about animals, in order to respond to the demands of scriptural interpretation, in terms of constructing arguments linked to the defense of orthodoxy and the refutation of divergent doctrines.