Anonymous: Problemata

This short text consists of excerpts from a manuscript commentary on the opening chapters of Genesis, cited by folio number and arranged as brief questions and answers attributed to various authorities. Sayings are ascribed to Judas, Theophilus, Orosius, Junilius, the apostle Matthew and Faustus. Topics include how a book’s authority is known from its prologue, the meaning of day and night in the creation account, whether the firmament stands still or moves, the creation of the human soul from nothing, the paradise of Adam, said to be higher than all mountains and near to heaven, an island in the east where Elijah and Enoch still dwell, and why Lamech’s vengeance was greater than Cain’s.

Question-and-answer collections on Genesis, mixing patristic opinion with apocryphal and legendary material, were popular in early medieval schools, especially in Irish and Anglo-Saxon circles. The unusual attributions here, to named authorities whose sayings cannot all be traced, are typical of that literature. As printed, the text is a set of selections rather than a complete work; its source manuscript, compiler and date are not stated, and it should be read as a sample of this exegetical tradition.