Augustine in His Own Words
for it. He not only practiced figurative methods, but also justified their place within a broader theory of interpretation, sketching core principles in his On Christian Teaching. As we saw, this work's fourth book focused on the art of preaching and was composed only at the very end of his career, around 427. But the work's first three books had been written 30 years earlier, around 397, and were among the first projects Augustine took on after becoming bishop.8 In their pages, he meditates on many matters: the canon of Scripture, the vagaries of the Vetus Latina, the need to know biblical languages, biblical geography, and much else. He also argues a basic thesis: that the Bible, however simple its surface, masks deeper mysteries; that for those who wrestle with it, its wording reveals a vast network of hidden meanings and a subtle, under-the-surface pedagogy that exercises both mind and heart for the ascent to God. Augustine's practice of figurative interpretation would influence how Western Christians read the Bible for the next thousand years.
The inspiration for writing such a handbook probably came from Tyconius (d. ca. 400), a lay Donatist theologian who, in the late 380s, had written the so-called Book of Rules (Liber regularum). Tyconius claimed to offer seven "mystic keys" that unlocked the Bible's "closed doors" and enabled one to walk sure-footedly through the Bible's "vast forest of prophecy . . . as by pathways of light."9 From Tyconius, Augustine drew the idea of the Church as a "mixed-up body" (corpus permixtum) of good and evil persons, an idea he later turned against the Donatists. From Tyconius, he also drew the idea of the totus Christus, "the whole Christ." This theme became the gravitational center of his exegesis of the Psalms. Augustine came to commend Tyconius's work as a "great help in penetrating the hidden meanings of the Scripture."10 Many are aware that reading Plotinus and Porphyry revolutionized Augustine's philosophic outlook; fewer have appreciated how Tyconius revolutionized his reading of Scripture and, indeed, of world history.11
Over his career, Augustine focused his vast literary energies on four biblical sources. The first was Genesis, for which he wrote three commentaries: On Genesis Against the Manichees (De Genesi adversus Manichaeos); On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, An Unfinished Book (De Genesi ad litteram liber imperfectus); and the massive On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram). To
8. Retr. 2.4.1 (CCL 57:92–93). He completed two-thirds of Book III, breaking off at 3.25.35. On the context, the issues, and a possible reason for this break-off, see Charles Kannengiesser, "The Interrupted De doctrina christiana," in Arnold and Bright, De doctrina: A Classic, 3–13. The first two books circulated independently, as evidenced by a remarkable early manuscript; see Kenneth B. Steinhauser, "Codex Leningradensis Q.v.13: Some Unresolved Problems," in De doctrina: A Classic, 33–43.
9. Tyconius, Liber regularum, praef., in De doctrina christiana 3.30.43 (Green, 174); my trans. 10. Doc. Chr. 3.30.42 (Green, 172); my trans. 11. Paula Fredriksen, "Tyconius," AugEncy, 855. While Augustine appropriated Tyconius's ideas, he also transfigured them, taking them places where Tyconius would have never dreamed of going.