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that is, yellow (like red) for fire and the Sun-god, and purple for Iris,
“quem arcum dicimus, quod Iris plurimos colores habeat” (“which we call
rainbow, because Iris has many colours”).46 In the works of the Fathers, the
relevant colours may vary as to their elemental connection – for instance
in one of the epistles by Jerome (ca. 350–420), a symbolic description of a
colour-tetrad is given, which points to a different explanation: treating on
the colours of specialia Pontificis vestimenta, Jerome maintains that white
belongs to earth (like the flax that linen is made of), purple to water (due to
the sea-snails it comes from), hyacinth to air (because of the likeness of col-
our), and scarlet to fire.47 But, with all possible various arrangements and
symbolic applications, this four-colour pattern with elemental significance
remained the most widespread model for many Christian writers of the
Latin Middle Ages, as we will also see relating to Bede’s (672/3–735) and
Honorius’ (ca. 1080–ca. 1137) treatment of the rainbow.
When we come expressedly to the rainbow and medieval allegori-
cal interpretations of its colours, we find that the prevalent view of the
pluvialis arcus regards it being multi-coloured, and that, if its colours are
mentioned, quality and number vary greatly from one to four. The quoted
passage of Isidore’s Etymologiae, where the rainbow is said to be of many
colours but is also associated especially with purple, is a good, clear-cut
example of this.
With reference to that double exegetical trend I have mentioned earlier,
it is in discussing the rainbow in his De rerum natura that Isidore gives two
different explanations of its colours, one rooted in the elemental tetrad of
archaic origin we have already seen at work in his writings; the other refer-
ring to a simpler binary opposition of meanings based on allegorical inter-
pretation of the Bible. This is what Isidore writes in chapter 31 ‘De arcu’:
Quadricolor enim est, et ex omnibus elementis in se rapit species.
De coelo enim trahit igneum colorem, de aquis purpureum, de aere
album, de terris colligit nigrum. [...] Alii ex duobus coloribus ejus, id
est aquoso et igneo, duo judicia significari dixerunt. Unum per quod
46 Ibid., § 2.
47 Cf. Jerome, Epistola 64 Ad Fabiolam. De veste sacerdotali, 18, in PL 22, cols. 617–618
(Quatuor colores et quatuor elementa referuntur, ex quibus universa subsistunt. Byssus terrae
deputatur, quia ex terra gignitur. Purpura mari, quia ex ejus cochleolis tingitur. Hiacynthus aeri,
propter coloris similitudinem. Coccus igni et aetheri...; col. 617).
THE RAINBOW ALLEGORY