Augustine in His Own Words (continued)
The Exegete 191 the truth. The person who thoroughly examines the divine utterances must try and chase down the intent of the author through whom the Holy Spirit brought that segment of the Holy Scriptures into being. [The interpreter] may end up arriving at this intention, or he may chisel out from the words some other meaning which draws its evidence from some other passage within the divine utterances and which does not run counter to right faith. The biblical author maybe saw that very meaning in the same words which we are trying to interpret. Certainly, the Spirit of God—who worked through the author to produce these words—foresaw that this very meaning would, without any doubt, occur to the reader or listener, or rather the Spirit took care that it should occur to the reader or listener because it too is based on the truth. What could God have possibly built into divine eloquence more generously and more exuberantly than that the very same words might be understood in multiple ways, each deriving support from other no-less-divinely-inspired passages?65
Tyconius's Book of Rules
Augustine was intrigued by and learned much from Tyconius, the Donatist theologian, whose Book of Rules sets out seven principles or "keys" for unlocking the mysteries of the Scriptures.66 Scholars have speculated that Tyconius's little book may have inspired Augustine to create his own, namely, On Christian Teaching. When, at the end of his career, Augustine sat down to complete the incomplete On Christian Teaching, he discussed Tyconius's book, quoting its preface and offering a précis of its rules. From On Christian Teaching, Book 3:
(30.42) A man named Tyconius, although he himself was a Donatist, wrote very convincingly against the Donatists and appears, on this issue, absurdly divided in heart, since he was unwilling to leave them altogether.67 He wrote what he called The Book of Rules, because in it he outlines seven rules which, like keys, one can use to unlock the obscurities of the Holy Scriptures. The first of these rules is Concerning the Lord and His Body; the second, Concerning the Lord's Twofold Body; the third, Concerning the Promises and the Law; the fourth, Concerning Species and Genus; the fifth, Concerning Times; the sixth, Con-
65. Doc. Chr. 3.27.38 (Green, 168–70); my trans. 66. For the Latin text with a parallel English translation, see William S. Babcock, trans., Tyconius: The Book of Rules, Texts and Translations 31 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1989). For studies on the influence of Tyconius, see the bibliography for this chapter.
67. "Unwilling to leave them": In the 380s, Tyconius was excommunicated by Parmenian, the Donatist bishop of Carthage, because of his overly Catholic views on the Church; see Contra epistulam Parmeniani 1.1.1 (BA 28:208–210).