22. 1bid., 1, 1 7, 34: "According to their proper meaning of what actually happened, not according to
Introduction 1 59 he nevertheless maintained that these were also realities: "All these things stood for something other than what they were, but all the same they were themselves bodily entities. And when the narrator mentioned them he was not employing figurative language, but giving an explicit account ofthings which had a forward reference that was figurative."19 Although in this commentary, too, Augustine interpreted figuratively many statements in the Genesis story, he did not dwell on this meaning but concentrated on the literal meaning.20
In view of Augustine's repeatedly announced intention of commenting in this work on the literal meaning of Genesis, modern readers are nonetheless disconcerted when they look a little more closely at the concrete interpretive procedure. That which the exegete offers as the literal meaning of the biblical text seems in fact to be often the result of an allegorical and figurative interpreta tion. Thus the days of creation are not temporal periods but categories in which for didactic purposes the biblical author summarizes creatures that were created simultaneously in time. The light is not the light perceptible by the senses; instead it signifies the enlightenment of intellectual creatures. Morning signifies the knowledge of creatures which the angels possess in the vision of God. Evening signifies the knowledge of creatures which the angels possess in virtue of their own created nature. In view of such examples the question arises: What did Augustine understand by "the literal meaning"?
As distinguished from the figurative sense, which looks at the Old Testament in the light of the New,21 an exegesis of the literal sense means interpreting historical facts, not in their future dimension, but as they were.22 There was no question in Augustine's mind but that on its first pages Genesis was reporting real events. This was true no less of the creation of the universe and human beings than of the fall. The act of creation was the "happening" par excellence, since the world came into being when called by God's word from nothingness into existence and since everything that exists, and even the whole history of humanity, is rooted in that original happening.
But the act of creation is a completely unique and incomparable event that does not take place within history but instead is the basis of time and history.23 For this reason, the act of creation and the coming into existence of the universe can be described only inadequately in human language. Augustine stressed the metaphysical and analogical character of biblical language: "The transference. . . of words from human matters to express things divine is common form with
19. 1bid., V111, 4, 8; see V111, 5, 10; V111, 7, 13; 1X, 12 and 20-21; X1, 39, 52; X1, 40, 55. 20. See ibid., 1, 17, 34; V111, 7, 13; 1X, 12, 22; 1X, 14, 24; X1, 34, 45; X1, 36, 49; X1, 39, 52. 21. See ibid., 1X, 13, 23; further examples in 1, 1, 1. 22. 1bid., 1, 1 7, 34: "According to their proper meaning of what actually happened, not according to their riddling, enigmatic reference to future events (secundum proprietatem rerum gestarum, non secundum aenigmata futurarum)." 23. See ibid., 1, 2, 4; V111. 1,3.