16. Jo. ev. tr. 15.1 (BA 71:756); trans. Rettig, FOTC 78:78. (continued)
on was the Word, at once the divine Word (Jn 1:1) and the Word-made-Flesh (Jn 1:14), and the unfathomable paradox of this captivated Augustine. Where the Synoptic Gospels focused on Jesus' concrete words and deeds, John's Gospel probed their inner meanings. This appealed to Augustine's taste, for he was fascinated less by history's facts and more by its deeper rhythms and undercurrents.
The fourth was not a book, but an author, St. Paul. Reading Paul's Letter to the Romans had catalyzed Augustine's conversion back in the garden in Milan. After ordination, he hoped to write at length on Paul. He did author a modest commentary on Galatians and a miscellany of reflections on Romans based on a question-and-answer session held in Carthage. But his grand plans for a full-scale commentary on Romans fizzled out after examining only its opening verses.17 Paul's letters shaped Augustine's biblical exegesis rather differently. One finds him citing Paul repeatedly, in virtually every sermon, commentary, and treatise, but most often, he commented not so much on Paul himself; rather, he used Paul to comment on the Bible as a whole. Paul's letters were his window on the Bible, his lenses for reading it, and he invoked Paul not only to resolve exegetical problems, but at least as often to articulate them.
That said, one work of Pauline exegesis does stand out. In 396, Augustine, newly installed as bishop of Hippo, received a letter from his old mentor in Milan, Simplicianus, asking him to address two troublesome texts from Romans. Augustine's reply, To Simplicianus on Various Questions (Ad Simplicianum de diversis quaestionibus), records startling new insights on grace, free will, and divine election. These, in turn, opened up fresh new perspectives on his life's journey, which he would record, soon after, in Confessions. Augustine came to see this early exegetical work as an anticipation of his debate with Pelagius. We will, therefore, explore this text not here, but in chapter 10 on the Pelagian controversy.
These were his major, but hardly his only, biblical projects. He meditated on Jesus' most famous words in On the Lord's Sermon on the Mount (De sermone Domini in monte); he probed overlaps and contradictions among the Synoptic Gospels in On the Agreement Among the Evangelists (De consensu evangelistarum) and Questions on the Gospels (Quaestiones evangeliorum); he addressed conundrums in the historical books of the Old Testament in his Questions on the Heptateuch (Quaestiones in Heptateuchum) and Sayings on the Heptateuch (Locutiones in Hepta-
17. Eric Plumer, ed. and trans., Augustine's Commentary on Galatians, OECS (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); Paula Fredriksen Landes, ed. and trans., Augustine on Romans: Propositions from the Epistle to the Romans and Unfinished Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Texts & Translations, vol. 23 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982).
The Exegete 161 teuchum). Of course, his exegesis was hardly limited to sermons or commentaries. Virtually everything he wrote, whether an ordinary letter or an erudite treatise, cites and discusses scriptural texts and scriptural issues in one way or another.
In this chapter, Books 1–3 of On Christian Teaching will provide the organizing framework and will serve as a springboard to explore issues. We will also see how its broad theoretical principles take flesh in his routine exegetical practice by focusing on sermons from the Tractates on the Gospel of John and Expositions of the Psalms. While Augustine's exegetical theories and exegetical practices do cohere closely, there is nothing either wooden or predictable about Augustine the exegete sitting down to the nitty-gritty task of interpreting specific texts. His theoretical statements do little to prepare one for how, in exegetical practice, the unexpected is routine: abrupt turns, sudden syntheses, surprising conjunctions, bold poetic flights, and memorable turns-of-phrase.
Gospel as Mirror, Christ as Teacher,
Augustine as Student
Augustine was acutely conscious that as bishop he sat, quite literally, above the heads of his congregation, elevated on the cathedra in the apse of the church. This visual prominence could be read—or misread—as symbolic of a spiritual superiority and thus a contradiction of the servant-leadership Jesus demanded in the Gospel. In the opening of one sermon, Augustine sets out what he sees as the relationship between Christ, the Scriptures, himself, and the gathered congregation. From Sermon 301A:
(1) The Gospel and living Word of God, what penetrates into the soul's marrow and probes the heart's axis: This is offered to all of us for the sake of our health. Its soothing touch does not comfort whoever does not give comfort to another. Look, the Gospel is put here in front of us as a mirror in which we are able to look at ourselves, and if, in our glimpsing into it, we happen to see dirt on our faces, we may wipe them clean so that the next time we glimpse into its mirror we won't have to blush.
And so the crowd was following the Lord, as we heard when the Gospel was read, and He turned and spoke to those who were following Him.18 Now if those things which He spoke were spoken only to His twelve apostles, each one of us could say: "He's talking to them, not us. That's something relevant
18. "He . . . spoke to those who were following": This sermon focuses on Lk 14: 25–35. Augustine is alluding here to Lk 14:25, noting that Jesus addresses "the great crowd."