32. 1bid. 1, 21, 41. See Agaesse and Solignac.La Genese au sens litteral 1-V11, note
Introduction 1 6 1 even of external details also made other points certain: the state of spiritual and bodily integrity in which human beings were originally created; the reality of the first sin; finally, the punishment that followed the sin and that explains the present state of humanity. To relativize the historical character of the paradise story was, in his mind, to relativize also the truths of faith that were closely bound up with the account.
On the other hand, Augustine did not claim that in his exegesis he had always found the definitive solution of all the problems posed to the interpreter. Not infrequently he allows for the possibility of other, better explanations: "I myself may quite possibly come to a different interpretation that corresponds even better with the words of the holy scriptures. I am certainly not insisting on this one in such a way as to contend that nothing else preferable can be found."29 As he looked back in his Revisions he says: "It is a work in which more questions were asked than answers found; and of those that were found only a few were assured, while the rest were so stated as still to require further investigation."30 He expressly warned interpreters against letting themselves fail to wrestle seri ously with the authentic meaning of the scripture simply because they want at any cost to cling to the explanations they have previously found: we should not cling to an opinion "in such a way that we want it to be that of the scriptures, when we should rather be wanting the cause of the scriptures to be ourown."3 1
How then is the exegete to proceed when the obscurity of the scriptural text allows for several possible interpretations? Augustine lists three criteria of inter pretation in such cases: the intention of the biblical writers, the context, and finally the rule of faith: "When we read in the divine books such a vast array of true meanings, which can be extracted from a few words, and which are backed by sound Catholic faith, we should pick above all the one which can certainly be shown to have been held by the author we are reading; while if this is hidden from us, then surely the one which the scriptural context does not rule out and which is agreeable to sound faith; but even if the scriptural context cannot be worked out and assessed, then at least only one which sound faith prescribes. It is one thing, after all, not to be able to work out what the writer is most likely to have meant, quite another to stray from the road sign-posted by godliness. Should each defect be avoided, the reader's work has won its complete reward, while if each cannot be avoided, even though the writer's intention should remain in doubt, it will not be without value to have extracted a sense that accords with sound faith."32
29. 1bid., 1V, 28, 45; see 1, 18, 37; 1V, 28,45; V11, 28,42; 1X, 1, 1; X11. 1, 1. 30. Revisions 11, 24, 1 (CCL 57, 109). 31. The Literal Meaning ofGenesis 1, 18, 37. 32. 1bid. 1, 21, 41. See Agaesse and Solignac.La Genese au sens litteral 1-V11, note complementaire 1, 579.