and P. Bright (eds.), De Doctrina Christiana: A Classic of Western Culture (Notre Dame,
Introduction 29 quial speech.23 There are striking stylistic differences from the early dialogues: there are hardly any complex periodic sentences and rhetorical figures, the language is seldom rhythmic, and the conversational tone prevails. But it is not in his language alone but also in the area ofthought and argument that Augustine strives to adapt himself to the level of those simple faithful (parvuli)2* whose anti-intellectualism he himself had brought with him from the Church to the Manichees fifteen years earlier.25
Looking back in his later work The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Augustine describes the intention and method of his first effort at interpretation: "My aim was to refute their ravings as quickly as possible, and also to prod them into looking for the Christian and evangelical faith in the writings which they hate. Now at that time it had not yet dawned on me how everything in them could be taken in its proper literal sense; it seemed to me rather that this was scarcely possible, if at all, and anyhow extremely difficult. So in order not to be held back,
I explained with what brevity and clarity I could muster what those things, for which I was not able to find a suitable literal meaning, stood for in a figurative sense; l did not want them to be put off by being faced with reams of obscure discussion, and so be reluctant to take these volumes in their hands. Bearing in mind, however, what l wanted but could not manage, that everything should first of all be understood in its proper, not its figurative sense. . . ,"26
The commentary itself, and not just this later statement, shows that at that earlier time Augustine saw figurative interpretation as the more suitable, because more flexible tool of thought than the often laborious search for the literal meaning. As his thoughts on interpretation at the beginning of the second book show, he gave priority to the literal interpretation.27 But at the same time he was conscious of the great difficulties of practicing such an exegesis in consis tent harmony with the truths of faith. He was aware of the limitations of his own theological, biblical, and philosophical competence in dealing with a text that raised many problems both of content and of linguistic expression.28 He saw the danger that a literal understanding of the text could lead to a blasphemous idea of God, but when he chose the safer path of figurative interpretation,29 he could
23. For example, ibid., 1, 7, 1 1. 24. See ibid., 1, 2, 2; 1, 2, 5; 1, 5 9; 1, 17, 27. 25. See R. J. Teske, "A Decisive Admonition for St. Augustine?" Augustinian Studies 19 (1988) 85-92. 26. The Literal Meaning ofGenesis V111, 2, 5. 27. See On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manichees 11, 2, 3; see The Literal Meaning of Genesis V111, 1, 4; V111, 2, 5. On the general question of biblical interpretation in On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manichees see C. Walter, Der Ertrag der Auseinandersetzung mit den Manichdernfiir das hermeneutische Problem bei Augustin (Dissertation: Munich, 1972). 28. See Revisions 1, 18, 1 (CCL 57. 54). 29. See R. J. Teske, "Criteria for Figurative 1nterpretation in St. Augustine," in D. W. H. Arnold and P. Bright (eds.), De Doctrina Christiana: A Classic of Western Culture (Notre Dame,