Teaching Christianity (continued)
[31]. J. Ratzinger, Popolo e casa di Dio in sant'Agostino (Milan, 1971)
57. Among others who emphasize the importance of this event in the development of Augustine's thought are M. Wundt, "Ein Wendepunkt in Augustins Entwicklung," Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche 21 (1921) 53–64; H. Hagendahl, Augustine and the Latin Classics II (Göteborg, 1967) 714.
[32]. H.-I. Marrou, Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique (Paris, 1958)
[34]. See Answer to Adimantus 11: "For as our authors, that is, the writers of the divine scriptures, thought chiefly of things, so almost the entire concern of secular authors is with words."
[35]. Letter 118, 5, 32.
[36]. K. Jaspers, The Great Philosophers, ed. H. Arendt, trans. R.
Mannheim (2 vols.; New York, 1962, 1966) 1:186.
[37]. See, on the subject, M. Manzin, "Il problema della persuasione in Agostino d'Ippona," Verifiche 16 (1987) 3–27.
[38]. An example is The Instruction of Beginners, in which a model of elementary instruction in the Christian life is outlined, based on an analysis of the various stages in the history of salvation: Adam's sin, its punishment, the Old Testament as preparation, redemption brought by Christ, end of the world, last judgment. Other syntheses can be found in Faith and the Creed, The Christian Struggle, and Handbook. See A. M. Kleinberg, "De agone christiano. The Preacher and His Audience," Journal of Theological Studies 38 (1987) 16–33.
[39]. Letter 167, 3, 13.
[40]. See Verbeke, "Augustin et le stoïcisme," 72–73.
[41]. In this context Pizzani points out the emergence as early as the work on Music of "a kind of dialectical contrast between, on the one hand, an ascensional 'intention' aimed at the complete liberation of the soul from slavery to the senses in order to achieve a pure contemplation of what is changeless and, on the other, a tension in the opposite direction that leads the soul to work within its relationship to the body": U. Pizzani, "Intentio ed escatologia nel sesto libro del 'De musica' di S. Agostinmo," in the collective work, Interiorità e intensionalitin S. Agostino (Rome, 1990) 50.
[42]. On this see J. J. O'Donnell, "Augustine's Classical Readings,"
Recherches augustiniennes 15 (180) 156–167, where he analyzes, among other works, Cicero's treatises on rhetoric, traces of which can be seen in Teaching Christianity.
[43]. On the sources of these ideas see J. Doignon "Le 'De ordine,' son déroulement, ses thèmes," in the collective work, L'opera letteraria di Agostino tra Cassiciacum e Milano (Palermo, 1987) 138.
[44]. See Plato, Timaeus 189e-190a (when the soul thinks, it converses with itself) and Soph. 263e (the discourse that goes on within the soul is thought).
[45]. See Sextus Empiricus, Adv. math. 8, 275–176. This point is emphasized by Manetti, Le teorie del segno, 142–143.
[46]. D. W. Johnson "Verbum in the Early Augustine (386–397),"
Recherches augustiniennes 8 (1972) 29.
[47]. This approach is taken not only by Todorov, according to whom Augustine transformed the materialistic doctrine of the Stoics on the basis of an analysis of designation together with a doctrine on communication (Theories of the Symbol, 54), but also by K. Kuypers, Der Zeichenund Wortbegriff im Denken Augustins (Amsterdam, 1934); J. Finaert, Saint Augustin Rhéteur (Paris, 1939); Mayer, Die Zeichen.
[48]. See U. Duchrow, "Signum und superbia beim jungen Augustin,"
Revue des études augustiniennes 7 (1961) 369–372.
[49]. See Teaching Christianity II, 4, 5.
[50]. See G.-H. Allard, "Arts libéraux et langage," 491. This split, Augustine says, gave rise to Babylon, the city whose name means "confusion" (City of God XVI, 4).
[51]. As O'Meara emphasizes, Augustine "considered in 386 that it was possible by reason alone to arrive at the truths revealed by authority, since God was the source of illumination for both coordinated, though independent, sources of illumination" ("Augustine and Neoplatonism," Recherches augustiniennes 1 [1958] 102).
[52]. U. Pizzani, "La dottrina agostiniana dell'origine del linguaggio e l'esegesi di Gen 2, 19–20," in the collective work Polyanthema. Studi di Letteratura cristiana antica offerti a Salvatore Costanza (Messina) 400–416. On this point see also idem, "Schema agostiniano e schema varroniano della disciplina grammaticale," in the collective work Studi su Varrone, sulla retorica, storiografia e poesia latina. Scritti in onore di Benedetto Riposati (Rieti, 1979) 397–411.
[53]. Johnson, "Verbum," 32, emphasizes Augustine's gradual reassessment of the material structure of discourse.
[54]. See, among others, A. Trapè, Saint Augustine. Man, Pastor, Mystic, trans. M. J. O'Connell (New York, 1986); idem, S. Agostino. Introduzione alla dottrina della grazia I. Natura e grazia (Rome, 1987) 43.
[55]. In "Christus, scientia et sapientia nostra. Le principe de cohérence de la doctrine augustinienne," Recherches augustiniennes 10 (1985) 82, Madec writes: "I believe, then, that from the day of his conversion Augustine identified the wisdom of the Hortensius and the divine intelligence of Plato with the Word of John's Prologue, the Christ; and that he was convinced that his entire teaching was based on the Christ, the Word who is God and the Word made flesh." Among others, Pizzolato, "Il de beata vita," 11, likewise stresses the central place of the theology of the incarnation in the development of Augustine's thought.
[56]. See, for example, A. Schindler, Wort und Analogie in Augustins
1965), who does not regard the linguistic implications of the use of verbum as central but sees them rather as originating in speculation on the Logos, and U. Duchrow, Sprachverständis und biblisches Hören bei Augustin (Tübingen, 1965), who prefers to connect the term with the problem of enlightenment in the order of seeing rather than in that of speaking/hearing.
[57]. See Johnson, "Verbum," 33–41.
[58]. H. G. Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. J. Weinsheimer and D.
G. Marshall (2nd rev. ed.; New York, 1989), writes that "the incarnation is closely connected to the problem of the word" (418). In Augustine, therefore "the 'true' word, the verbum cordis, is completely independent of such an [sensible] appearance. It is neither prolativum (brought forth) nor cogitativum in similtudine soni (thought in the likeness of sound). The interior word is thus the mirror and image of the divine word" (420). On this subject see G. Bavaud, "Un thème augustinienne: Le mystère de l'Incarnation, à la lumière de la distinction entre le verbe intérieur et le verbe proféré,"
Revue des études augustiniennes 9 (1963) 95–101.
[59]. The Trinity XV, 11, 20 (Hill 409).
[60]. On the subject see J. Mader, Die logische Struktur des personalen
Denkens (Vienna, 1965) 193; L. Alici, "Linguaggio e tempo in S. Agostino," Miscellanea Mediaevalia 13/2. Sprache und Erkenntnis im Mittelalter, 1047–1045; I. Sciuto, "Verità della parola e interpretazione in Sant'Agostino," in the collective work Parola e senso. Studi di ermeneutica (Padua, 1984) 87–89
[61]. Augustine maintains that in a personal act memory, intellect, and will activate one another, and words are the sign of this fruitful exchange, being the the manifestation of a presence that brings with it traces of a spiritual world. See Trinity IX, 7, 12; 9, 9, 14; XIV, 7, 10; XV, 10, 17–19. I refer the reader to my article, "Il linguaggio come segno e come testimonianza," 93, 104.
[62]. See Teaching Christianity I, 13, 12.
[63]. Referring to the Wisdom of God, Augustine says that "she came where she already was, because she was in the world, and the world was made through her" (ibid.). In this connection, E. S. Lodovici, Dio e mondo. Relazione, causa, spazio in S. Agostino (Rome, 1979), emphasizes the fact that Augustine rises above any and every substantialist opposition between God and the world.
[64]. See Expositions of the Psalms 3, 3. Johnson, "'Verbum,'" 50 comments that "it is precisely this unity that makes the Incarnate Word preeminently and uniquely God's Word!"
[65]. Teaching Christianity I, 12, 12. On Christ as Mediator and the difference between him and the analogous figure in Neoplatonism see G. Madec, "Connaissance de Dieu at action de grâces. Essai sur les citations de l'Ep. aux Romains I, 18–25 dans l'oeuvre de saint Augustin," Recherches augustiniennes 2 (1962) 291.
[66]. See Teaching Christianity I, 16, 17.
[67]. See ibid., I, 18, 17.
[68]. Only in the second period of his literary activity (397–411) does Augustine clearly focus on the idea of a hereditary fault, while after 412 his interpretation of it becomes more profound and specific: every human being born acquires, by way of propagation, a situation of sin that depends on the sin of Adam. On this subject see A. Sage, "Péché originel. Naissance d'un dogme," Revue des études augustiniennes 13 (1967) 211–248, and Trapè, S. Agostino.
Introduzione alla dottrina della grazia, 200–208, who in conparison with Sage emphasizes the continuity in the development of Augustine's thought.
[69]. So also M. Flick and Z. Alszeghy, Il peccato originale (Rome, 1972) 97–110.
[70]. As P. Prini writes, Augustine came to realize that "the coming of Christ marked the beginning of a new age with an all-embracing plan and a radical commitment of humanity to itself." See P. Prini, "Temi agistiniani nel pensiero storico contemporaneo," in the collective work Atti del Congresso internazionale su S. Agostino nel XVI centenario della conversione (note 11, above) I, 287.
[71]. Todorov, Theories of the Symbol, 40.
[72]. U. Eco, "L'epistola XIII e l'allegorismo medievale," Carte semiotiche 1 (1984) 20. He goes on to say: "Textual semiotics and contemporary hermeneutics still move along the main lines set down by Augustine, even when they are secularized semiotics or hermeneutics, even when they do not recognize their origin, and even when they look upon a worldly poetic text as sacred and a repository of infinite wisdom."
[73]. Thus, for example, Todorov, in whose view Augustine was "guided by a tendency to inscribe the semiotic problem within the framework of a psychological theory of communication" (Theories of the Symbol, 56).
[74]. Teaching Christianity I, 1, 1.
[75]. Ibid., I, 2, 3. The statement echoes Quintilian (see Inst. orat. 3, 5, 1).
[76]. See G. H. Allard, "L'articulation du sens et du signe dans le De doctrina christiana," Studia patristica 14 (1976) 388–89.
[77]. Teaching Christianity I, 2, 2.
[78]. On this subject see J. Pépin, La tradition de l'allégorie de Philon d'Alexandrie à Dante. Études historiques (Paris, 1987) 114, who points out echoes of this conception in the works of Cicero.
[79]. On this see C. Boyer, "La notion de nature chez Saint Augustin," in idem, Essais anciens et nouveaux sur la doctrine de Saint Augustin (Milan, 1970) 215–228.
[80]. Augustine mentions in this context the wood that Moses threw into the water, the stone on which Jacob rested his head, and the animal that Abraham sacrificed in place of his son.
[81]. Teaching Christianity, I, 2, 2.
[82]. Todorov, Theories of the Symbol, 41.
[83]. According to R. Bodei, Ordo amoris, Conflitti terreni et felicità celeste (Bologna, 1991), in a love thus understood as an "ascending stream" and an "order open to the Other than us who is in us and in whose nature we participate" (92) "there is inherent both order and freedom" (117).
[84]. In dealing with the first hypothesis Augustine distinguishes first of all between signs whose meaning does not apply to themselves (the word "conjunction" is not a conjunction) and self-referential signs (for example, "word" and "sign," both of which can be regarded as words and as signs). Second, the various kinds of relationship between semantic content and possibility of use led him to distinguish between nonequivalent signs (for example, "sign" and "word," where the meaning of the former is wider but less comprehensive than the meaning of the latter), equivalent signs ("name" and "word," where the meanings are equivalent but they are used differently), and identical signs ("name" and "onoma," which have the same meaning and use, though in different linguistic settings). On this subject see especially the summary in The Teacher 7, 19–20.
[85]. Teaching Christianity II, 1, 1.
[86]. The definition was not new and even has clear Aristotelean and Stoic forebears; here, however, even by comparison with the statement of the problem in The Teacher, something more is said about the specific character of the relationship of meaning. This is the thesis of Darrell Jackson in particular ("Theory of Signs," 12), who analyzes the Augustinian definition and compares it with the theory of signs developed by Aristotle, especially in his Categories and his On Interpretation, and by the Stoics (see ibid., 41–49). According to Holte, Béatitude et Sagesse. Saint Augustin et le problème de la fin de l'homme dans la philosophie ancienne (Paris, 1962), 329–331, the relation between sign and thing is the same as that described in Order II, 9, 26, as the relation between "authority" and reason: just as one passes from sign to thing, so one passes from authority to reason. On the relation between thing and sign in Varro see J. Collart, Varron grammarien latin (Paris, 1954) 258–278.
[87]. For example, according to Todorov, Theories of the Symbol, 45– 56, in Augustine's work signs may be distinguished 1) according to their mode of transmission (sight and hearing); 2) according to their origin and use (natural and intentional signs); 3) according to their social function (natural/universal signs and institutional/conventional signs; 4) according to the nature of the symbolic relationship (proper and metaphorical signs); and 5) according to the nature of what is designated (a sign or a thing). Darrell Jackson, "Theory of Signs," 15–29, introduces a further division within given signs that takes account of psychological and semantic factors: 1) things; 2) perception; 3) understanding; 4) meaning; 5) communication. Of special interest, finally, is the scheme proposed once again by Manetti, Le teorie del segno, 235– 36, who sees in Augustine a "classification that includes genus and species," close to the model of Porphyry's tree (on this subject see Eco, Semiotica e filosofia del linguaggio, 91).
[88]. See Teaching Christianity II, 10, 15.
[89]. On this see P. Godard, "Notes complémentaires," Oeuvres de Saint
Augustin 11. Le magistère chrétienne (Paris 1949) 564.
[90]. Given signs should be called "intentional" rather than "conventional": "The term 'given,' which is opposed to 'natural,' implies all that the word 'give' expresses, and that means a subjective intention to signify as indicated by a specific will to communicate something" (G. Ripanti, Agostino teorico dell'interpretazione [Brescia, 1980] 39–40). Others who agree with this view are Darrell Jackson, "Theory of Signs," 14, and Manetti, Le teorie del segno, 239.
[91]. This is the thesis of, among other, J. Engels, "La doctrine du signe chez saint Augustin," Studia patristica 6 (1962) 371, whereas according to Markus the distinction is based on a difference in the relationship of dependence: a subject-object relation in the case of natural signs, and a sign-subject relation in the case of given signs; see Markus, "Saint Augustine on Signs," 72.
[92]. Todorov, Theories of the Symbol, 47.
[93]. The Teacher I, 2: "Those who speak give an external sign of their intention through articulated sound."
[94]. Teaching Christianity II, 2, 3.
[96]. Among others who agree on the existence of this triadic scheme in Augustinian semiology are Darrell Jackson, "Theory of Signs," 22– 25, and Sciuto, "Verità della Parola," 85. See note 21, above.
[97]. On this point see also A. Maierù, "'Signum' dans la culture médiévale," in Sprache und Erkenntnis im Mittelalter (Miscellanea Mediaevalia 13/1; Berlin-New York, 1981) 55.
[98]. Teaching Christianity II, 3, 4.
[99]. See A. Pieretti, Il linguaggio (Brescia, 1984) 20.
[100]. R. Simone, "Semiologia agostiniana," La cultura 7 (1969) 97–98.
It is even possible to see in the text of Teaching Christianity an anticipation of the theory of the "twofold articulation" of these signs; according to this theory it is only in verbal languages that there is a level made up of minimal units having meaning (monemes, morphemes), these being further reducible only to a level of minimal units that lack any meaning (phonemes). On this question see A. Martinet, Elementi di linguistica generale (Bari, 1977) 21–26.
[101]. Teaching Christianity II, 10, 15.
[102]. Todorov, Theories of the Symbol, 51.
[103]. Teaching Christianity II, 16, 23.
[104]. See ibid., II, 16, 24—42, 63. In analyzing the sciences of nature, number, and music, Augustine carefully distinguished revealed truths from the disciplines established by human beings; within the latter he draws sharp lines between science and superstitious practices, and urges his readers to exercise careful discrimination. Finally, he turns to the mechanical arts and to the disciplines having to do with human rationality, especially dialectic.
[105]. See Teaching Christianity III, 1, 1—4, 8.
[106]. "In the first place," according to Augustine, "you have to beware of taking a figurative expression literally. And this is where the apostle's words are relevant, The letter kills, but the spirit gives life (2 Cor 3:6)" (ibid., III, 5, 9).
[108]. As applications of this criterion Augustine mentions: the ability to distinguish between what is said for all and what is said for only a few; attention to the historical context; the exhortation not to apply one's own measure to others; the interpretation of immoral actions; humility before sinners; respect for a legitimate plurality of interpretations.
[109]. On Tychonius—an important personage among the Donatists and in a position of considerable authority among them, to the point where Augustine makes use of him in rejecting their idea of the Church as a community of the perfect—see H. A. Van Bakel, "Tyconius, Augustinus ante Augustinum," Nieuw Theol. Tijdschrift 19 (1938) 36–57. On the intersecting of the thought of Augustine and that of Tyconius see A. Casamassa, Il pensiero di Sant'Agostino nel 396–397 (Rome, 1919); A. Pincherle, Vita di Sant'Agostino (Bari, 1980) 160–162, 361–163; J. S. Alexander, "Tyconius' Influence on Augustine: A Note on Their Use of the Distinction corporaliter/spiritaliter," in the collective work, Atti del Congresso internazione…. conversione, II, 205–211. Around 370 Tyconius had drawn up some exegetical rules for correctly interpreting the relation between prophetic texts and the coming of the kingdom of God (see Tyconius, Liber regularum, ed. F. C. Burkitt [Texts and Studies 3/1; Cambridge, 1894). What the rules provided, however, was not so much a method for dealing with allegory but primarily a method for dealing with typology, which tended to interpret personages and events of the Bible, sometimes in an ingenious and forced way, as "types" or prefigurations of the Church and its history.
[110]. The rules have to do with: the mystery of the union of Christ with the Church; the mystical sense in which we speak of the body of the Lord; the value of the promises and the law; the ability to understand genus and species; the importance of times; the presence of digressions and recapitulations; the meaning of the hidden presence of the devil among believers (see Teaching Christianity III, 30, 42—37, 46).
[111]. See J. Pépin, Mythe et allégorie. Les origines grecques et les contestations judéo-chrétiennes (Paris, 19812).
[112]. See E. Moirat, Notion augustinienne de l'Herméneutique (Clérmont-Ferrand, 1906) 27–31, 44–45; M. Comeau, Saint Augustin exégète du IV e Évangile (Paris, 1930) 103–105.
[113]. H.-G. Gadamer, "Simbolo e allegoria," Archivio di filosofia (Padua, 1958) 32.
[114]. Ripanti, Agostino teorico, 61. In addition to Ripanti's book, which studies the ontological, epistemological, and theological structure of allegory in Augustine, see M. Simonetti, Lettera e/o allegoria. Un contributo alla storia dell'esegesi patristica (Rome, 1985) 341, note
404, and 358, where he maintains the theory of a rather sparse use of allegory in Augustine; this thesis needs revision, says M. Marin, "Allegoria in Agostino," in the collective work La terminologia esegetica nell'antichità (Bari, 1987) 148, note 33.
[115]. See Pépin, La tradition de l'allégorie, 134, [116]. See ibid., 92.
[117]. See, for example, Sermon 52, 4, 5.
[118]. See Pépin, La tradition de l'allégorie, 99.
[119]. B. De Margerie, Introduzione all storia dell'esegesi 3. S. Agostino (Rome, 1986) 74. "The same words, while carrying the same overall meaning for the majority of people, can nonetheless, depending on time and place, take on new nuances of meaning, thanks to a richer set of connotations. What comes into play here is the entire phenomenon of successive rereadings of the same texts" (75).
[120]. Teaching Christianity II, 16, 23. De Margerie observes: "It is through the search for the sacred writer's intention that readers and exegetes hope to find the divine will. This is Augustine's voluntarist and teleological way of emphasizing the great principle of any sound exegesis: the spiritual sense is to be explained on the basis of the literal sense" (Introduzione 3:35).
[121]. See P. C. Bori, L'interpretazione infinita. L'ermeneutica cristiana antica e le sue trasformazioni (Bologna, 1987) 99–100.
[122]. B. Studer, "Sacramentum et exemplum chez saint Augustin,"
Recherches augustiniennes 10 1975) 119.
[123]. Ibid., 123. He continues: "The second aspect, on the other hand, that is, the search for the love of God and neighbor, is helped especially by exemplum, because here there is question of things useful for living, demands to be met, models to be followed."
[124]. "The New Testament is hidden in the Old, the Old Testament is revealed in the New" (The Instruction of Beginners 4, 8). "Augustine has, in fact, a predominant concern: to defend the holiness of the Old Testament against deliberate condemnation. Allegory helps in this defense by uncovering 'certain great secrets' beneath the letter of certain passages…. Well, then, at least in some cases, the secret uncovered by allegory is a meaning that brings the Old Testament closer to the New" (H. de Lubac, Esegesi medievale [Rome, 1962] 231–243).
[125]. See, for example, J. Ries, "La Bible chez saint Augustin et chez les manichéens," Revue des études augustiniennes 7 (161) 231–243.
[126]. Marin, "Allegoria in Agostino," 155. This essay, to which I refer the reader for further study, examines Augustine's notion of "allegory" and analyzes his theory and practice, while studying the influence on him of scripture, the patristic tradition, and classical pagan culture.
[127]. De Margerie, in particular, emphasizes the fact that Augustine rises above the limitations of Origen's allegorism, as well as his agreement with the theses of Cyril of Alexandria and Isidore of Pelusium; see Introduzione 3:55.
[128]. Teaching Christianity III, 15, 23.
Unity of Language and Faith in Biblical Exegesis. States of Mind and Styles (Genera dicendi)
Chapter
While the subject material on which "invention" is exercised is sacred scripture, the "arrangement" (dispositio) of the ideas cannot be separated from it, and style (elocutio) plays a clarifying role. Of these first three divisions of rhetoric the one most subject to variation is the style that characterizes an author. By way of its vast array of models it involves morphology and syntax. Through grammatical variations and innovations in the choice of words a speaker looks for "colors," no longer as mere adornments but to provide illumination and help understanding of the discourse. Style also indirectly involves diction, which is part of the fifth division, the "action" or actual speaking. From the moment an orator begins to speak, the entire person becomes involved: from the gaze to bodily postures, gestures with the hands, and the use of the voice. Different tones of voice will express a call for help or emotion or enthusiasm, exhortation, threat, or prayer. In saying that style has a large field of models to choose from, my aim is to call attention to the fact that Christian rhetoric, too, makes use of these. The process whereby examples from the pagan classics were replaced by others from the Bible was a lengthy one.
The unqualified principle that the models followed should be spontaneous excludes exercises in "transference" (traiectio), the affectation that deadens the spontaneous movements of the heart and leads to complexity. Spiritual attitudes that find expression in words are learned through words.
The models, which transcend lexical limits and are open to meanings that the mind seeks to adapt to reality, have rational and psychological bases. They are not a series of means of verbal expression but have a life of their own and are suited to well-defined and precise situations. Together with all the other factors, such as the human face, they combine to implement the particular style of expression.
No Latin writer has succeeded as Saint Augustine has in the development of models. One follows the other like conceptions scattered about by the mind, and we are faced with an artistic prose, as it were, that produces models. An attempt to single out the formal values of this unusual prose would be a lengthy task. Saint Augustine calls attention to the figures of speech in a process which he had developed along with his thesis on the connection between wisdom and eloquence. The theory is one which he continues to develop in almost all his works, especially in the biblical commentaries, and reaches its culmination in Teaching Christianity, which we may describe as a treatise on biblical exegesis growing out of almost thirty years of reflection (397–428). There is still need of giving due importance to this treatise that sums up the teachings of the past and opens the way to the future.
Quintilian[1] rejects the thesis of those who regard our way of speaking and writing as more pleasing when it is natural and simple. According to him, in addition to natural talent, there was need not only of instruction in rhetoric but also of the education which only literature could give.
According to Cicero,[2] literature nourishes us in our youth, is the adornment of our prosperity, and is our refuge in times of adversity; it delights our old age and never abandons us; it gives human beings freedom and dignity. According to Seneca,[3] occupations and affairs can never be allowed to hinder education, because without study a human being is like a corpse: "Leisure without literature is death and a tomb for a person while still alive." [4] Saint Augustine, for his part, as a result of reflection on the behavior of human beings, on the exact sciences, and on the reading of the Bible, is led to take into account the universal values contained in things that have some relation to the human mind.
It is to be observed that many human attitudes are shared by people in different times and places. So too are people's observations of natural phenomena. Striking examples of this can be found in a tradition stretching through the centuries. To look to the dependence of one writer on another as the explanation for this repetition is a useless task. It is not such a dependence that should capture our attention but the inner freedom that directs the words and persuasions of human beings.
One of the aspects neglected by students of late antiquity has been the biblical language of the Christian community. Playing on similar-sounding words in a sentence with parallel halves (paronomasia), Augustine notes that "the sacrament of the New Testament give salvation, the sacraments of the Old Testament promised a savior." Then, continuing the parallelism, he confirms a general opinion: The Old Testament is concerned with the image of the earthly man, the New Testament with the image of the heavenly. But lest anyone think that the earthly man was made by someone other than the maker of the heavenly man, when God showed himself to be the creator of both, he also willed to be the author of both Testaments, so that in the Old Testament he might promise things earthly and in the New Testament things heavenly.[5]
The faithful should not be ignorant of the sacred scriptures, which in their entirety hinge on Christ. The lowly slave, the peasant, the artisan, the young and the old, men and women of whatever social condition can live Christ, which means understanding the scriptures.
With the coming of Christ a new world has opened up that is independent of "liberal studies"; these are neither excluded nor required. There are many ways of reaching Christ: through manual labor or through study. As a result, the community is a composite body: alongside the educated rhetorician are the uneducated folk. Many forms of classical culture run through the life of the Christian community, some because they are inherent in the communication of the human mind, others because they are more congenial to educated Christians.
Christian homiletics in the early Church could not help but develop exegetical principles for dealing with sacred scripture. Preachers had to speak the language of everyday life; this was true of Christians who spoke Latin or Greek and Christians who spoke the Eastern languages. In a homily on the gospel of John Saint Augustine speaks again of that moment in exegesis when the souls of the preacher and believers meet through recollection and meditation: "I am about to close the book, and you will be returning to your homes. We have been at ease in the light we share, we have enjoyed a good deal of pleasure together, and we have been built up. But when we leave one another we do not distance ourselves from him [Christ]." [6]
Saint Augustine speaks frequently of exegesis: in his sermons, in his theological and philosophical writings, in his commentaries, and in his books on catechesis.
It is Saint Augustine's experience that when our words are natural and spontaneous they manage to make a deeper impression on the minds of others and to persuade them. In my own research I have on quite a few occasions been able to show how in Augustine's case his thought patterns display a logic and expressivity that flow from a natural rhetoric, the rhetoric that is universal. This is the sore point in his controversy with those whom he calls "educated people" (litterati).[7] This last is the term he uses to mean grammarians, rhetoricians, and literary critics, while we today understand it to mean everyone with a general education.
The people he has in mind did not regard the sacred scriptures as worthy of their consideration because these books did not seem to be written according to the rules of classical pagan rhetoric. Saint Augustine thinks these educated people to be short-sighted because they lack the ability to compare. He himself chooses not to teach by giving instruction in the principles of rhetoric, although he does look for the full meaning—overt or supposed—of words, as in many figures of speech. The use of such figures is in his view a native trait of human language and not limited to professors practiced in the liberal arts.[8]
Even ordinary people easily use figures of speech without having devoted any special study to them.[9] The real problem for Saint Augustine is always to understand the language of the scriptures, in which figures of speech are especially frequent. For this reason, as he writes in Teaching Christianity, it is necessary to be very alert to the ambiguity of metaphors, which "call for no ordinary care and attention." Here the apostle's words are relevant: "The letter kills but the spirit gives life" (2 Cor 3:6). If something expressed in a metaphor is taken literally, "we are being carnal in our way of thinking." [10] Those who take metaphors literally and do not realize that they are dealing with a figure of speech, which conveys a different meaning, go astray. They are unable to look at corporeal creatures with the eye of the mind, so as to reach the eternal light: "This, precisely, is the wretched slavery of the spirit, treating signs as things, and thus being unable to lift up the eyes of the mind above bodily creatures, to drink in the eternal light." [11]
To investigate the senses of the Bible was the great task which Augustine the exegete set himself. He sought to call the attention of critics to the eloquence of the sacred scriptures. In his view, the human word is unable to keep up with the speed and liveliness of thought.[12] To some extent this was a torment to him and he tried to conquer it. He was not content to know things for himself but wanted to communicate them to others. He recognized the inadequacy of rhetoric as currently taught, calling it a market of useless words and lies.[13] Thinking of the harm done by the schools of rhetoric, he asked himself whether oratory could still be taught in that way.[14]
Augustine was a highly educated man. He never saw things from a narrow angle but in a broad setting and in continuity with other things. He reflected a great deal on the phenomena of the natural world in order to see in them possible links with what human beings use in order to act and to express themselves. As Della Corte has clearly shown, in Milan Saint Augustine encountered the phenomenon of fog, which he had never met in such density and frequency either in his native Africa or in Rome.
Because the fog was so dense he was no longer able to see the streets, though these were still there since they had not disappeared. Only when the fog began to dissipate was he able to see anything. Hardly had the air become clearer when he began to distinguish how the various streets led off from the main avenue, which itself gradually became clearer. [15]
We cannot imagine the extent to which the phenomenon of fog influenced Augustine's deeper grasp of the principle at work in figures of speech, a principle always to the forefront of his mind. As he himself says, the failure to familiarize oneself with the metaphorical language of the sacred scriptures leads to misunderstanding and consequently breaks the continuity of biblical discourse. He speaks often of this, as, for example, in the antiphrasis (expression by opposites) in On Lying 10, 24,[16] in connection with the arguments against the Priscillianists and with the theses on the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles.
According to Saint Augustine, the passages of the Old and New Testaments cited by the heretics are not correctly interpreted. They contain prophetic locutions and references to time that must be properly understood, that is, as metaphors. The attitude of Jacob when he appears to be deceiving Isaac, his father (Gen 27:1–36), is "not a lie but a mystery (non mendacium sed mysterium)."
If incidents of this kind are taken as examples of lying, then the parables and figures of speech as well as all the metaphors in which one thing is said but another is signified are also lies. Saint Augustine had accustomed himself to an integral and not fragmentary vision of the literary genres. His starting point was always the word, which is an expression of order and freedom.
Saint Augustine knew the New Testament in its entirety, and at the level of words this follows an uninterrupted line. Paul (Col 4:6) exhorts his readers to let their speech be wise and courteous. In his view, there could be no good morals if speech is perverted (1 Cor 15:33). According to James the apostle, if persons are careful in their speech, they are able to restrain not only their tongues but their whole bodies.
I do not emphasize this point because I have dwelt on it at length in the chapter entitled "Word and Freedom" of my book, Paideia antenicena (Brescia, 1967). It is the theme of Saint Augustine on which he builds his thesis of a universal rhetoric. From Longinus on the Sublime and, later, Quintilian down to Augustine there is a development among Christian authors who gradually, without lengthy disquisitions, in practice observed the difference between classical pagan eloquence and Christian eloquence. The end point of this development is defined in Augustine's Teaching Christianity.
If we are to understand Saint Augustine from within, as it were, we must follow his prose through the cosmic harmonies which he hears and translates and by means of which he communicates his faith. He is the theologian of the beauty of number as a universal set of relations. His interior life flowers in the soil of an intense spiritual experience. We have to approach him without breaking the unity between thought and action that shapes and binds together all the Fathers of the Church. The modern world cannot understand him because it has separated theology from science and made it something alien to the Christian people. How can they read Justin and Irenaeus, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose and Augustine?
By deciding to pursue the culture of science as a method of experimentation, without which nothing is regarded as true and believable, we have lost the dimensions of the human person. We need only think here of computers. The dimensions of the human being are interwoven; if one is lost, all are lost. For us nowadays a symbol is a fanciful linking of two ideas, an expressive device that adds nothing to reality. For the ancients, on the contrary, symbols were one of the many means of heightening awareness. By means of symbols they could gain insight into many things that could not be reached by cold reasoning.
For the ancients, symbols guided the mind into areas which ordinary language is unable to penetrate directly.
Saint Augustine is familiar with the logical processes used in scientific research, because geometry and astronomy should, by means of arithmetic, help in grasping many areas of reality that are reflected in the Bible. They are, so to speak, an exegetical necessity. In biblical exegesis an element of recollection is combined with series of images in order to open the door to other spiritual horizons.
With his gaze this man who turned the sacred scriptures into a book of the interior life embraced the various aspects of this book in unbroken succession. One of the elements recalled, one that appears frequently as a sign in the pages of the Bible, is number. Exegesis was to be a service to those who desired to draw near to the word of God in order to hear and assimilate it to the point of living it and sharing in it.
In a prayer for understanding of the sacred scriptures Saint Augustine asked that he might not be deceived in them and might not lead others astray.[17] In Teaching Christianity he expressly states that ignorance of numbers hinders the grasp of the metaphorical and mystical sense of much that is found in the Bible: "Unfamiliarity with numbers is…the cause of one's not understanding many things, which are put down metaphorically and mystically in scripture." [18]
This statement of Augustine reveals a quite specific method. According to sacred scripture the creator has arranged everything "by measure and number and weight" (Wis 11:20). Clement of Alexandria regards geometry as a science that helps lead us into things divine and into the Holy of Holies.[19] Plato, too, had said that God always "geometrizes." [20] Anticipating the direction taken by analytic geometry, Saint Augustine regards number as the foundation of mathematics and the natural sciences. He was a keen observer, to the point of grasping the principle of mathematical and philosophical infinity. In his view, memory contains the countless relations and laws of arithmetic and geometry, none of which is impressed on the mind by the external senses.[21]
Our eyes can see even the finest lines, such as the threads of a spider's web, but geometric lines are quite different, because they are invisible to the eyes of the body. We know them in our minds, but without thinking of any object whatsoever. We can indeed have sensations of numbered objects through the five senses of the body, but these objects are different from pure numbers and are not even images of these. Pure numbers are absolute realities.
The third to the sixth century saw advances in the mathematical sciences. The reason why the Fathers were aware of this progress was that number summons up geometry and geometry number. Lest we get lost in abstractions, let me give an example. In the language of Augustine's numerology we must take into account that numbers and geometric figures are interchangeable. In his usage the number four, which signifies the entire world as divided into east and west, north and south, becomes a symbol.
The number four is a reminder of the square and the square of the number four. Four is to be related especially to the square which a human being signifies by the horizontal line of the outstretched arms and the vertical line of the upright body. In other words, a person in this posture inscribes a cross within a square. This is one of the factors that leads to regarding the cross as an element of the cosmos.
When Saint Augustine supposes the Church, the apostles, and the prophets to be a cornerstone, he is trying to persuade his readers that the form of the square is connatural to Christians. In temptation Christians do not fall and, if pushed, they will turn but not fall, like the cornerstone which remains solidly grounded from whatever side it is approached. Augustine applies Psalm 36:24 in an exhortation: "So, then, you have been made four-square and ready for all temptations; whatever assails you, let it not throw you back. Let everything that happens find you standing." [22]
As the number four refers to the square, so the number eight, which is the sum of seven and one, refers to the octagon. There is no point to my dwelling here on the ogdoad, since I have spoken of it elsewhere. I must simply note the picture of the "bending of the fingers" to indicate numbers (using the fingers in counting), along with the various images this could call up; it is one of the vivid sources of symbolic language that appears in exegesis. But of this, too, I have often spoken.
Following the lead of Archimedes, Augustine distinguishes between science and technique.[23] In music the technique consists in the use of instruments; instrumentation seeks material effects and the applause of the public; it is not the spirit that inspires the composition. In his Music, after dealing with technique, which is not science, Saint Augustine moves on to the essential part: the power of number, which controls every movement and every rule for the succession of sounds. Number that results from measure in the relationship of the sounds is the soul of music because it gives rise to all the sensations. It gives value to tempo and establishes the relations between the various movements and their parts. Saint Augustine uses number to explain the variety of movements.[24]
In his view, primacy in all the sciences belongs to number, which is classified in arithmetic, while arithmetic proceeds independently of the other sciences. This is a principle that Boethius later borrows from Saint Augustine. [25] For Boethius, too, music makes use of arithmetical principles to express its own relationships. In the measurement of lines and figures geometry necessarily makes use of arithmetic.
With the help only of number and geometrical figures astronomy is able to study the movements of the stars. In Saint Augustine's view, number, which underlies rhythm, is connected not with the world of matter but with the world of the soul. It tends to infinity; it shares in the incorporeal reality of the spirit; and it is an operation of the soul.[26]
As for the law governing rhythm, the series of numerical relations—equal or multiplied or one-and-a-half—keeps returning endlessly, like number itself; by "one-and-a-half" is meant a number that contains another one and a half times (as three contains two). The eternity and immutability of numbers depends on one, which is eternal and immutable.
And as one is in a direct relationship with all other numbers, so every nature tends to unity.[27]
The spheres, whose movement we see with the help of our senses and of everything that is included in them, can receive and retain their arrangement in space only if preceded by a succession of times, which are a matter of movement. In turn, vital movement precedes and measures, in a succession of intervals, the numbers whose rhythms define time. And to these the rational and intelligible rhythms of souls transmit the very arrangement decreed by God, including the order established on earth and beneath it. [28]
With his comprehensive vision of the physical world and the world of human beings, and in an effort to bring the one closer to the other, Saint Augustine looks for common denominators, which he finds in number. He starts from areas which have become excessively separated in our minds and therefore seem disparate and distant from one another, whereas in reality they are all linked. He looks for a guiding thread that will help him to narrow the gap between science and the interior life.
This is the reason for enormous difficulties in Augustinian research, and it is a fundamental reason. Saint Augustine, then, sees all the disciplines as interconnected, but his major concern is the passage from the one to the other in their universal functionality despite the human tendency to get lost in details. He even shows how the wicked and the impious can devote themselves to studies. Using the reflection of John: If the Son frees you, you will be truly free (Jn 8:36), he tells such people that they are inconsistent, because whatever is in agreement with freedom is also in agreement with truth.
The incarnate Word says: The truth will make you free (Jn 8:32). Therefore neither the impious fables of the poets nor the elegant lies of the orators nor the elucubrations of the philosophers that darken the heart and lead it to folly are consistent with Christian freedom. They are sophistries that seek to substitute corruptible mortals for the incorruptible God; they represent the proud error of those who seek to pass off as science that which is fact has nothing to do with science.[29]
Number is for Saint Augustine the starting point for both astronomical calculations and the harmonies of sound. It is precisely the concept of rhythm that constantly postulates a relationship that is inseparable from the concept of number. The alternations of short and long sounds in the various tempos lead us to the temporal values which the soul projects into the metaphysical world. From the earth the soul rises to God, from time to eternity. We must hark back to the great mystery of the number one. Saint Augustine looks at the relations of the various feet not with the senses but with the mind. Syllables are long in relation to short syllables, and short in relation to long ones.[30] He has a clear concept of melody and rhythm.
As everyone knows, rhythm is obtained through an arrangement in which long and short syllables follow in a determined order; this causes the listener (according to Augustine) to perceive a rational alternation of long and short beats. This succession of long and short beats gives rise precisely to rhythm. Melody arises out of the modulated utterance of syllables that are sung on different notes, some lower, others higher: flexus or inclinatio vocis (variation in pitch; inflection of the voice). Rhythm is the principle, the active element, the soul of the arrangement of the words; melody is the passive element, a kind of resistant matter. Saint Augustine had intended to write six books on melody, but his responsibilities as a churchman prevented him.[31]
Thus we are without a work that would have explained a great deal to us.
We cannot simple indulge in inferences, but we may say this much: the subject would have led Augustine to discourse on natural harmonies and the common denominators found in these, thus enabling him to rise to the metaphysical plane. He would have continued to speak of number as he had already done in dealing with metrical feet. He sees the large picture, and every detail has the important role of being an element that helps in the reconstruction and understanding of things. In emphasizing the rhythmical movement he does not neglect "the measured intervals of silence," that is, the beats between various syllables, better known as the "empty beats" (inania tempora).[32]
He is concerned about the obstacles that hinder the understanding of the sacred scriptures, but he cannot be always dealing with insulting objections, although he does refute these. He wants to take a rational approach and help others to learn from experience how natural and fulfilling it is to read the Bible.
In writing the fourth book of Teaching Christianity, Saint Augustine went back to the values contained in the formal rhetoric of his time; this meant to the stichometric manner of speaking that was used in the schools of the grammarians and rhetoricians of that age. Saint Augustine's problem was to work out the relationship between wisdom and eloquence while going back to the Bible; he sought a radical resolution of the problem.
He starts from the principle that wisdom is something that cannot be manufactured, and he tries to prove this with examples from the scriptures. The analysis is one which this master of rhetoric makes in a clear and persuasive manner. He draws his reader's attention to the fact that the relation between wisdom and effective speech has been the subject of lengthy discussions among rhetoricians and philosophers,[33] but for the sake of brevity he limits himself to a statement of Cicero as an example: "Wisdom without eloquence is of little use to society, while eloquence without wisdom is frequently extremely prejudicial to it, never of any use." [34]
In Augustine's eyes, the idea of wisdom was so precious that it could not escape the attention of those who were fully aware of what rhetoric taught, of those "who thought the art of rhetoric… worth teaching," that is, men like Cicero.[35]
Contrary to appearances, Saint Augustine always prefers brevity in presenting an argument; this was a gift which Cassiodorus attributed to him.[36] Thus after citing the statement of Cicero he immediately turns to the subject of the scriptures without any further discussion of the point he has made. He cites a passage from Paul (Rom 5:3–5) in order to show the indissoluble bond existing between wisdom and effective speech. Here is the passage as Saint Augustine read it: We glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation results in patience, patience in approbation, approbation in hope, while hope does not confound, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.[37]
I have divided the passage into clauses (kôla) and phrases (kommata) in order to follow the system which Saint Augustine explicitly applies in his formal rhetorical analysis. First of all, he sees in the passage the figure of speech known in Latin as gradatio (a series of increasingly forceful propositions), in Greek as klimax (ladder). Then, careful to make the ideas clear, he explains what a gradatio is: it does not call up the image of a ladder, since the steps are not arranged one above the other, but are here inserted one within another. Patience is connected with tribulation and approbation, and hope with approbation. He does not tell us what the correct name of this figure of speech might be, but simply calls attention to the fact that the Latins did not want to call it a "ladder." [38]
He has passed from the general to the particular, as though reticent lest he lose the thread of his discourse in the labyrinth of the figures of speech and their variations.
Continuing his exegesis of the passage from Paul, he calls our attention to the different tones of voice that are needed in order to capture each nuance of the image throughout the circuit of propositions which we today call principal and secondary, or coordinate and subordinate, but which the ancients simply called "clauses" and "phrases." In the teaching of rhetoric rules concerning the use of the voice were given in the fifth division of the subject, namely, the oratorical action or delivery of the speech.
But these precepts are connatural to human discourse and implicit in it, and Saint Augustine does not mention them. He does however say that in order to avoid all misunderstanding when reading the Bible aloud, the necessary balance must be observed between the phonetic value of the words and their expressive value. (We must not forget the important role played by the lector in the reading of the sacred texts during the liturgy in the early centuries.) This kind of reading is one of the "embellishments" of which Saint Augustine often speaks.
There is also another embellishment to be observed, that after some phrases, each terminated by a pause, which our people call "clauses" or just "phrases," while the Greeks call them kolons and kommas, there follows a round or circuit, which they call a periodos, whose clauses are held in suspense by the voice of the speaker, until it ends with the last of them. Thus the first of the clauses that precede the period, is that tribulation results in patience, the second is patience in approbation, the third approbation in hope. Then the period is joined on, consisting of three clauses, in which the first is while hope does not confound, the second because the love of God is poured out in our hearts, the third through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.[39]
Saint Augustine ends by saying that all these things are well-known and "taught in courses on the art of eloquence." [40] As far as Saint Paul is concerned, then, while we cannot claim that he consciously observes the rules of eloquence, neither can we deny that his eloquence is due to his content, that is, wisdom.
In the Second Letter to the Corinthians Saint Paul rebukes certain pseudoapostles from Judaism, who had scolded him. When forced to defend himself he admits his own folly, but, observes Saint Augustine, with what wisdom and what eloquence he does so! The Bishop of Hippo turns again to the idea of wisdom as the guide of an eloquence that achieves beauties of thought and phrase through the use of antonomasia: Paul acts as "the companion of wisdom, the leader of eloquence, following the former, going ahead of the latter, and not spurning her as she follows." [41]
As he cites this entire passage (2 Cor 11:16–30), Augustine is struck by the commatic style of what he is transcribing. Historical linguistics at that time, which meant formal rhetorical analysis, had not yet viewed this as a stylistic genre, but it had adverted to its passing presence in some stichometric units. In order to talk of the phenomenon, rhetoricians had to fall back on the division of the period into kôla and kommata, which the Latins called "clauses" and "phrases" (membra et incisa).
As we saw a little earlier, the word incisum (phrase) is also called caesum (also = phrase) by Augustine in Teaching Christianity.[42] In order that I may not have to repeat myself I refer the reader to a study of mine on the shift from sentence construction "by short phrases" (incisim) in the variety proper to classical pagan prose, to the commatic genre, in the true and proper sense, of Christian writers.[43] In fact, to designate a style, whether the grand, the moderate, or the plain, Saint Jerome uses the term "commatic genre." It is the biblical exegetes who have uncovered its presence in sacred scripture and tell us of all the times it is present. Saint Augustine notes that a literary form reflects a particular state of mind.
He is very attentive to the variety of the movements of the soul that are expressed (in 2 Cor 11:16–30) through the sequence of words, in an always lively eloquence that does not become monotonous. Saint Augustine seems to be saying that construction "by clauses" (membratim) is not the same construction "by short phrases" (incisim). He meticulously points out the various parts of the discourse and calls attention to the effort that must be made in repeating wellknown and more than well-known ideas. Let us not forget that his intention is to teach a lesson to relapsed rhetoricians, both pagan and Christian, who are not convinced that there is a wisdom in the Bible that is conveyed through formal values. He knows that his effort is not a superfluous one, since the demonstration of principles must be convincing.
His intention is to single out the clauses and periods on which the commatic structure depends. After the verbs "follow" and "add" and the adverbs of time such as "then" and "already" and the adverbs of place such as "thence" and the adversative conjunction "however," he lists the lines (in a stichometric analysis) that signal the commatic form. We are here being given an analysis of rhetorical form that is important because it takes us into a world that eludes us. He identifies the clauses of the period in order to prevent confusion, and immediately gives an example. He states beforehand that a period cannot have only one clause but must have two, three, four, five, six or even more.[44]
A two-clause period, "For you put up with it, if anyone reduces you to slavery," is followed by three phrases: If anyone swallows you up, if anyone takes you in, if anyone pushes himself forward.[45]
In the commatic structure a question is not lost sight of when the answer follows immediately. A period of three clauses, "But in whatever respect anyone puts on a bold face —I speak in folly—I do so too," is followed by three question-and-answer phrases: Are they Hebrews? I am too. Are they Israelites? I am too. Are they the seed of Abraham? I am too.[46]
But in the fourth line the commatic pace is broken: there is a counter-clause instead of a counter-phrase: Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool— I am more so.[47] Next come four phrases that seem to give form to the claim just made: In labors endlessly, in prisons more frequently, in beatings beyond measure, at the point of death more often.[48]
Then a short period is inserted that consists of two clauses, these being indicated by the use of the voice: From the Jews five times — have I received forty strokes less one,[49]
And this is followed by three phrases:
Three times have I been beaten with rods, once I have been stoned, three times shipwrecked.[50]
After the clause, "I have been a night and day in the depth of the sea," comes "flowing out with a most becoming force": Often on journeys, in danger of rivers, in danger of robbers, in danger from my kin, in danger from the nations, in danger in the city, in danger in the wild, in danger in the sea, in danger among false brethren; in toil and distress, too often going without sleep, in hunger and thirst, too often fasting, in cold and nakedness.[51]
Finally, there is a three-clause period: "Apart from these outward matters, the daily assault on me, my anxiety for all the churches." [52]
Saint Augustine excuses himself from going through the rest of this passage or other passages of scripture, but says that if one were to deal with other passages in the same manner, one would find that the devices taught in the schools of rhetoric are the same as those already to be seen in Paul. If they are taught by professors, they are highly esteemed and bought at a high price because they are communicated with great pomp and show. It is this self-advertisement that Augustine fears seeming to engage in when he speaks of these matters. He could not fail to respond to poorly educated people who scorn the books of sacred scripture, not because they lack eloquence which these people so greatly extol, but because they do not parade it.[53]
Turning from Saint Paul, Saint Augustine decides to say something about the eloquence of the prophets, whose figurative language conceals a great many things. From among the prophets he chooses Amos,[54] who says that he is a shepherd and herdsman and that he was taken from that activity by God in order that he might speak to the people. But Saint Augustine will not analyze the text as found in the Septuagint because the text there seems to have undergone additions meant to encourage readers to search out a spiritual sense; this is why we must assign to the translators some passages that are overly obscure because overly figurative. Instead he will analyze the Hebrew text as translated into Latin by the presbyter Jerome, who is highly knowledgeable about both languages.[55]
The prophet's opening denunciation could not but rouse the drowsy senses: Woe to you who are opulent in Sion, and place your trust in the mountain of Samaria, aristocrats, heads of peoples, pompously pacing into the house of Israel! [56]
The prophet next shows how ungrateful these people were for the blessings of God, who had given them an extensive kingdom. Why ungrateful? Because they were putting their trust in the mountain of Samaria where they were worshiping idols. Therefore he continues: Pass over to Calneh and see, and go from there to Hamath the great; and go down to Gath of the Philistines, and to each of their best kingdoms, if their boundaries are wider than your boundaries.
In Saint Augustine's eyes, the prophet's discourse is here adorned with place names as with "lights": Sion, Samaria, Hamath the great, Gath of the Philistines. Furthermore, through the "nice variety" of the words associated with the places the prophet wanted to make use of varied terms that might seem synonymous but with their slight nuances of meaning acquire special values; the play of long and short syllables provides another embellishment by making the prose rhythmic.[57]
Due to the punctuation which we introduce into modern editions we miss out on this "embellishment" which the ancients looked for. Our punctuation is logical, but has removed the rhythm. Saint Augustine has been careful to point out the key rhythmic words that make vivid to us the way in which the rich of Israel move within the closed circle of their self-centeredness.
Opulenti estis [you are opulent] = choreic foot confiditis [you place your trust] = cretic foot transite [pass over] = trochaic foot ite [go] = trochaic foot descendite [go down] = cretic foot.[58]
These are key words that are placed in the various clauses as points of reference for the rhythm. As I noted earlier, Saint Augustine sees the length of the various feet in relation not to the senses but to reason. Syllables are long in relation to short syllables and short in relation to long syllables. The iambic meter (a short and a long), even when pronounced rather slowly, never loses its proportion of one to two. On the other hand, if the pronunciation of a pyrrhic foot (two shorts) is slowed down, the result is a spondee (two longs), and in this case we are relying no longer on grammar but on music.[59]
The words cited by Saint Augustine all show the one-totwo proportion. Present here is the great mystery of "one." He sees many precepts regarding delivery in this and other passages of the prophet Amos, which he comments on word for word.
When he comes to the final words, "And they felt nothing for the grinding down of Joseph," [60] he observes that there is a figure of speech here that had not been classified by the rhetoricians. The figure of speech consists, of course, in this, that "Joseph" stands for all the other brothers, each of whom has his own proper name. Augustine does not call this "synecdoche," and in any case he avoids attributing great importance to the definition of the various tropes. He even says: "Whether indeed this trope… is propounded in that art of rhetoric which I both learned and taught, I do not know." [61]
The exactness of Christian doctrine has stripped its language of redundancy and has limited its use to the areas of grave and moderate eloquence. An example is the style of Cyprian, although even he at times displays an excessively embellished eloquence that is not in keeping with the seriousness of the subject.[62]
But when the moment for speaking comes, let churchmen reflect that a properly ordered mind should remember what the Lord himself said: It is not you who are speaking, but the Spirit of your Father who is speaking in you (Mt 10:19). The rules telling us how to teach are necessary, however, and mastery requires more than that the Holy Spirit be guiding us. Otherwise, everything would become useless, even prayer, since Your Father knows what you need even before you ask it of him (Mt 6:8). Nor should Paul have told Timothy and Titus what and how to teach others.[63]
The two Letters to Timothy and the Letter to Titus should be always before the eyes of those who have the office of teaching in the Church. Those who in their discourses seek to persuade people to do what is good by teaching, delighting, and swaying them should pray and do their utmost to have people listen to them gladly and with understanding and docility. Such speakers will reflect in their discourse what Cicero said: "That man therefore will be eloquent, who can talk about minor matters calmly, about middling ones moderately, about great matters grandly." [64]
Echoing Cicero, Saint Augustine is saying that a speaker will be eloquent who in his teaching knows how to speak of minor matters in an unassuming way; in order to please, he knows how to speak of things requiring average intelligence in a temperate tone; and in order to persuade, he knows how to speak of important matters with a solemn eloquence.[65]
Here we have the three kinds of style: the low or plain, the moderate, and the grand. Cicero can show us how the three styles are used in legal cases, but not in ecclesiastical situations. For us, on the other hand, everything we say, especially from the pulpit (Augustine: "from our higher position"), is important because it has to do with eternal salvation. Here everything becomes important, even small things. The gospel itself tells us that anyone who is faithful in a minimal amount is also faithful in a great amount (Lk 16:10). In other words, it is important to be faithful in unimportant matters.
The model here is a circle. In this geometric figure "the essence of roundness, that is where the lines from the center to the edge are all equal, is the same in a large dish as in a small coin." Saint Augustine concludes: "In the same way, where minor matters are dealt with justly, this does not diminish the greatness of justice." [66]
Saint Paul uses the grand or solemn style when in the First Letter to the Corinthians (6:1–9) he criticizes the faithful who started proceedings before the civil tribunals instead of resolving financial disputes within the community, as if there were no one there wise enough to act as judge between brothers and sisters. He reprimands, scolds, and threatens. He is greatly troubled in mind, and his voice changes. He uses solemn words for things that might seem negligible. But he acts in this way because of justice, charity, and faith, in the eyes of which even little matters are as important as great matters.[67] "If we were advising people how they should conduct their secular business…before ecclesiastical judges, we would rightly advise them to present it calmly, as a minor matter." [68] But when dealing with a subject that is in itself a lofty one, a speaker should speak calmly when teaching, in a moderate style when preaching, and in a solemn style with a soul that had debased itself.[69] Solemn expression is in place when speaking of the divinity, but here again a variety of styles is needed.
Saint Augustine finds an example of the low or plain style in Saint Paul's Letter to the Galatians (3:15–22), where the apostle speaks of Abraham having two sons, one by a slave woman, the other by a free woman. Abraham was told of the promises to himself and his offspring: not to his offsprings but to his offspring, namely, Christ. If the inheritance were to come from the law, it would no longer come from the promises, and yet God gave it to Abraham in virtue of the promises.
But the question arises: Why was the law given if the inheritance does not derive from it? The answer: The law was given because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the inheritance had been promised. If a law had been given that could bestow life, righteousness would come through the law. But scripture encloses everything in sin because the promise was given to believers through faith in Christ. According to Saint Augustine, the teacher must render plain what is hidden and answer every question, provided we are not upset by questions we cannot answer.[70]
For the moderate style Saint Augustine refers to 1 Timothy 3:1; Romans 6:15; 12:1, 16; 13:8, 12–14. He calls attention not only to the speech patterns and the positioning of the clauses and period but also the harmony of the words, although this is difficult to preserve in the Latin translation. He says that the translation is a literal one, in which the order of words in the original is preserved but without having the rhythm of the original.[71]
He does not lay great emphasis on "number" [= rhythm or cadence], which, he says "is wanting in our authors." [72]
But he does not want to play down the importance of their profound divine statements by seeking to judge them according to their rhythmical cadence, which perhaps we are unable to appreciate in their original languages. The prophets were familiar with flowing, harmonious discourse, and Saint Jerome tells us that he saw them in the Hebrew text. Saint Augustine writes: "I do not neglect these concluding rhythms in my own speaking, as far as I consider can decently be done; still what gives me more pleasure in our authors is that I find them there so very infrequently." [73]
The solemn or grand style differs from the moderate due to "the impetuous expression of deep feelings." It can use formal embellishments but does not go looking for them. The words themselves express the ardor of the heart. Saint Paul uses the solemn style in 2 Corinthians 6:2–11, a passage that does not lack these "embellishments of speech." [74]
The same holds for the Letter to the Romans, when the apostle speaks of the persecutions of this world that can be overcome only by a charity based on the hope of help from God (Rom 8:28–39).[75] The Letter to the Galatians is written in the calm style, except in one of its last parts (4:10–20), which can only be described as written in the moderate style. [76] Nor is it a lukewarm feeling that lends ardor to the apostle's expression of his thoughts; his words to the Galatians are profound. They are to be committed to memory. In order to plumb their full meaning there is need not only of a reader but of an exegete, whom Saint Augustine calls an "expositor." [77]
He sees that through the reading of the biblical texts Christian writers have in the course of time made progress in religious knowledge and, by expressing themselves in these various styles, have rendered a great service to the Church. The Bishop of Hippo, with his historical awareness, knows ancient Christian literature in its stages of development. Here he gives the example of Cyprian who used the plain style in speaking of the sacrament of the cup and settling the question of whether the Lord's cup should have only water in it or water mixed with wine.
In his exegesis of Genesis 8:20–23 Saint Cyprian sees the passion of Christ prefigured by Noah, who drank not water but wine. In like manner, he sees the sacrament of the Lord prefigured by Melchizedek (Gen 14:18 and Ps 110:3–4) who offered bread and wine and blessed Abraham. Saint Ambrose, too, when dealing with the very exalted subject of the Holy Spirit and demonstrating the equality of the Spirit with the Father and the Son, uses the plain style and relies on exegesis of the Bible (1 Cor 10:4; Num 11:4; Lk 12:49).[78]
Turning back to Cyprian: he uses the moderate style in his praise of virginity,[79] the same style that is used by Saint Ambrose[80] when proposing models for consecrated virgins to imitate in their way of life. To exemplify the solemn style, Saint Augustine recalls that both Cyprian and Ambrose used the solemn style in inveighing with fervent pointedness against women who color their faces with various cosmetics. [81]
After citing a passage of Saint Ambrose in which he speaks of this alteration of one's natural features as a sin against nature, Saint Augustine thinks that on reading such a piece of eloquence women feel urged no longer to alter their natural appearance but to grow in modesty.[82] It is a piece of writing that is to be regarded as unqualifiedly in the solemn style. In both figures of speech and styles Saint Augustine is for variety. If a discourse remains too long in one style it cannot hold the hearers' attention, but if it shifts to a different style, the discourse becomes more acceptable. Nevertheless the prolonged use of the plain style is more tolerable than the prolonged use of the solemn style.[83]
It is left to the author's discretion to speak in the plain style of matters that might be conveyed in the solemn style. In praise or rebuke the moderate style should be used and introduced. In a discourse in the solemn style there is a place for the other two genres, and the same is true of a discourse in the plain style. Not to be forgotten is the rule that the moderate style is used to delight the spirit, not to rouse it to action.[84]
It is not to be thought that an orator will be applauded more often and more warmly if he speaks in the solemn style. The same result can be obtained from the plain style and from the embellishments of the moderate style. The solemn genre should hush outcries and make the tears flow. In this context, Saint Augustine tells of his experience with "the mob" in Caesarea of Mauritania. He is referring to a fierce battle in which not only fellow citizens, but relatives, friends, brothers, parents and sons fought one another.
These people were divided into two factions and fought each other for two straight days, even to the point of killing one another. Augustine decided to have recourse to the solemn style in order to root out this cruel and inveterate practice from the hearts of the citizens of Mauritanian Caesarea. He did not think he had succeeded in his undertaking until he saw tears pour from their eyes. Applause may signify understanding, but tears reflect something deeper, namely, that the hearers are moved and fully convinced.[85] For eight or more years now nothing of that sort has been attempted again. Saint Augustine ends his vivid story of the incident with an aposiopesis: "There are many other experiences which have taught me that people have shown by their groans rather than their shouts, sometimes also by their tears, and finally by the change in their lives, what the grandeur of a wise man's speech has achieved in them." [86]
Saint Augustine continues to speak of the three styles and the shifts from one to the other, but on the level of formal rhetorical analysis.[87] As far as he can, he points out the motifs that interiorize the results desired. He sees, however, that questions are not really answered on the level of formal rhetoric. Even the use of the plain style changed people who were rather intellectually inclined. They may have been led to accept what they had thought unbelievable, but they were not moved to put it into practice.[88] Perhaps the solemn style was needed for this?
The task of all three genres of discourse is to persuade. If a speaker does not persuade, he does not achieve the goal he has set for himself, that is, the goal of eloquence itself. In the plain style he persuades people that what he says is true; in the solemn style he persuades them to put into practice what they know they ought to do but do not in fact do; in the moderate style he persuades them to admire the beauty of his speech. With a certain intolerance, Saint Augustine asks in regard to this last goal: "What need do we have of an aim like that?" Let those have this aim who glory in being mere men of letters; in their panegyrics let them speak so as to delight their hearers. We use the moderate or the solemn style for the purpose of having our hearers love what is good and avoid what is evil.
In sections 21–30 of the fourth book Saint Augustine seems to dwell on general principles of eloquence, but in fact his intention is to stress the point that exegetes must explain the subject matter of the Bible to others. Eloquence is also related to wisdom.[89] The biblical writings are both wise and eloquent. Exegetes must not speak as though they possessed the same authority as the books which they are explaining, but must endeavor to make themselves understood. They must not concern themselves with being eloquent teachers but with the clarity of what they say.[90] They must set aside any affected language and use everyday words in order to avoid ambiguity and obscurity, thus practicing a kind of "diligent negligence."
Of what value is scrupulosity in the choice of words if the hearers are unable to understand the discourse? The listeners are to hear the truth and understand what they have heard.[91] Exegetes should not strive to teach with great fullness but rather so that the points are fixed in the minds of the hearers.[92] Good minds love what is true in words, not the sound of words themselves. Of what use is a golden key if it cannot open what we want?[93]
Saint Augustine borrows from oratory the principles that help exegetes to move the spirits of listeners, not to know what should be done but to do what they already know should be done.[94] This accounts for the exchanges between exegesis and ecclesiastical oratory, both of which have the same goal.
Great importance is given to the incantatory power of words; words can persuade people to do not only what ought not to be done but even very base and evil things. "May God spare his Church from experiencing what the prophet Jeremiah states about the synagogue of the Jews, when he says, Amazement and horrid things have come upon the land; prophets were prophesying iniquity, and priests clapped their hands in applause, and my people loves it thus. And what will you do in the future? (Jer 5:30–31)."
Saint Augustine sees this rebuke of Jeremiah as an axe that splits rocks. "Far be it from us that priests should applaud those who utter iniquity, and that the people of God should love it thus." Listen to what is just and not to what is iniquitous, even if this be said in an elegant discourse.[95]
The three genres (the plain, the moderate, and the grand) point to various circumstances, but they need some clarification. Our discourse falls within these three styles. Saint Augustine never moves beyond the bounds of formal rhetoric. For this reason he often returns to the details of each style. He notes that in using the solemn style we must not be boring if we expect to be heard willingly.[96]
In citing the testimonies of God, a situation in which we must use the plain style, we must speak so as to be heard with docility, as Psalm 92:5 desires: Your testimonies have come to be exceedingly believed. Many questions may be resolved using the plain style, and universal propositions, such as judgments, may be conveyed.[97] It is the aim of all three styles—the plain, the moderate, and the grand—to be heard with obedience compliance.[98] But if we are to be heard with obedient compliance, we must be fully understood.
In the matter of compliance, the speaker's manner of life carries greater weight than the grandeur of his discourse.[99]
On the other hand, one who speaks learnedly and eloquently but lives an unworthy life may instruct many but will not profit his own soul, as Saint Paul says (Phil 1:18). Saint Augustine likes brevity and therefore he says things quickly. He tries to bring out even the smallest nuances in his exegesis of Paul. Christ must always be preached. But the truth can be preached even by a twisted and deceitful heart, by those who are seeking their own advantage, not that of Christ.
The faithful who listen obey not any human being but the Lord who says: Do what they say; what they do, however, do not do, for they say and do not do (Mt 23:3). For this reason it is possible to listen with profit to those who play an important part in the Church, a part established by sound doctrine, and do not dare to teach some views of their own. Of these scripture says: They sit on the chair of Moses (Mt 23:2). It is not their own chair, but the chair of Moses, and it compels them to say what is right even while doing what is wrong. In their personal lives they act in their own interest, but the chair prevents them from teaching their own views. [100]
Many people who are trying to defend their own bad behavior invoke their teachers.[101] They reproach them: "Why do you not do what you wish to teach me?" The pupils even reach the point of scorning the word of God.
Saint Paul speaks of this to Timothy: Let nobody despise your youth because of the qualities it must certainly show. Be a model for the faithful in word, in behavior, in love, in faith, in charity (1 Tm 4:12). In seeking to be heard with docile obedience, such a teacher may freely use the plain, the moderate, or the solemn style, because he does not live a disordered life.
He has chosen a good life and a good reputation before God and human beings (see 2 Cor 8:21). In speaking he keeps an eye on the truth and desires to be accepted for what he says. The teacher should not be the servant of his words, but the words the servant of the teacher, lest the power of Christ's cross be frustrated. It is pointless to argue about words. Arguments over words only ruin those who are listening. Arguments should serve only to render clear and pleasing the truth that spurs to action. Even charity can never be rightly ordered if the things to be loved are not true but false.
Expression in which form and content are in harmony is a spontaneous application of one or other of the three styles: the plain, the moderate, or the grand. Such eloquence comes naturally if the speaker always has the truth before his mind and lives according to the Christian principles which he professes; such a life becomes a continual and effective catechesis: "a manner of life" that is itself "a kind of eloquent sermon." [102]
Those who steal take the belongings of others, but the word of God does not belong to others if the one who takes it is subject to him.[103] It becomes the possession of others in the case of those who, while communicating it well, live evil lives. Such is Saint Augustine's exegesis of Jeremiah 23:30. The ones who are stealing the words of God are those who want to appear good but are in fact wicked and act according to their own views. Saint Paul says of such people: They claim that they know God, but they contradict it with their deeds (Tit 1:16).
In another place scripture says: Hypocrites, how can you say good things, since you are bad? (Mt 12:34). An eloquent but bad person can compose a discourse in which he speaks the truth, but only provided it be delivered by another who is good, though not eloquent. Then the former hands over what is not his to another, while the latter receives what is his from the former.
In Saint Augustine's view, good Christians of orthodox faith communicate to one another, through the ordered lives they lead, the divine patrimony that belongs to all. He writes in his unmistakable prose: "When good men who are believers do this service for good men who are believers, both parties are saying what is their own, because God too is theirs and the things they are saying are his. And those who are unable to compose these good sermons make them their own, when they compose themselves to live according to what they contain." [104]
The holy bishop of Hippo believed that he could use his own experience to form those who set out to speak to the people. But, he says, anyone who must speak of things having to do not with temporal safety but with eternal salvation must pray even more fervently than Esther did before speaking to Ahasuerus.[105] The whole of Teaching Christianity is taken up with exegesis of the Bible; the fourth book is no different, but is in fact the culmination. Its intention is that the teaching of the faith should permeate the thought and activity of anyone who wants to explain the word of God, which is never abstract but is meant to be translated into everyday life.
Close attention must be paid to the terms "teaching" and "Christianity," which Augustine uses. The work in its entirety brings together the word of God, the Church, and the duty of each believer to receive and pass on, with the single aim of salvation, what they themselves have assimilated and put into practice. At the end of the work the author admits that it has turned out to be longer than he expected. But he thinks it will not be long when the reader thinks of the other things left unsaid. What he has said is enough to awaken in the minds of others ideas and sentiments to be developed through images.
This is a work that should be read piecemeal and meditated on, because it can be fatiguing. The author thanks our God that with his limited abilities he has been able to set down in four books "what sort the pastor should be who is eager to toil away, not only for his own sake but for others, in the teaching of sound, that is of Christian, doctrine." [106]
A reading of the fourth book of Teaching Christianity has shown that in addition to grasping the tropological techniques used in the language of the Bible and to making a formal analysis of it, the exegete needs to conform his life to the principles which he intends to present to others as capable of implementation in everyday life. That is, Saint Augustine is raising the question of faith as a principle of knowledge for a greater understanding and better communication of biblical values.
Book IV of Teaching Christianity forms a natural conclusion to the first three, and its subject matter could not but have been taken up separately.
Antonio Quacquarelli
Notes
[1]. De instit. orat. 12, 14, 25.
[2]. Pro Archia 7, 14.
[4]. Ep. 82, 4, in Epistulae Morales II, trans. R. M. Gummere (Loeb
Library; New York, 1930) 243.
[5]. Expositions of the Psalms 73, 2.
[6]. Homilies on the Gospel of John 35, 9.
[7]. Teaching Christianity III, 29, 40.
[8]. M. Marin, "La definizione agostiniana di antifrasi e la sua 'fortuna,'" Augustinianum 25 (1985) 329–341.
[9]. Teaching Christianity III,29, 40.
[10]. Ibid., III, 5, 9.
[12]. The Instruction of Beginners X, 4, 4.
[13]. Confessions IX, 2, 2.
[14]. Ibid., VIII, 6, 13.
[15]. On this section see F. Della Corte, "Agostino e il progetto 'encyclopedico,'" in L'umanesimo di Sant'Agostino (Atti del Congresso internazionale di Bari, 28–30 ottobre 1986) 89–117 and especially 90–91.
[16]. See Marin, "La definizione"; and see idem "Retorica ed esegesi in Sant'Agostino," in L'umanesimo di Sant'Agostino, 215–223.
[17]. Confessions 11, 3.
[18]. Teaching Christianity II, 16, 25.
[19]. Stromata 6, 11, 86 (GCS 15:474).
[20]. Symposium 8, 2.
[21]. Confessions X, 12, 19.
[22]. Expositions of the Psalms 86, 3.
[23]. See my study, "Le scienze e la numerologia," in Atti del Congresso internazionale su S. Agostino nel XVI centenario della conversione, Roma 15–20 settembre 1986 I (= Studia Ephemeridis "Augustinianum" 24) 419–438; idem, "La sicilianità di Firmico Materno, i suoi Matheseos libri e la cultura cristiana delle scienze nel IV secolo," in the collective work, Il cristianesimo in Sicilia dalle origini a Gregorio Magno (Caltanissetta, 1987) 127–167.
[24]. See G. Marzi's introduction to his translation of On Music in Collana di Classici della filosofia, ed. at Gallarate (Florence, 1969) 11–68.
[25]. See F. Di Mieri, "Il De institutione arithmetica di S. Boezio,"
Sapientia 37 (1984) 179–202.
[26]. Music VI, 6, 16.
[28]. Ibid., VI, 17, 58.
[29]. Letter 101, 2.
[30]. Music VI, 14, 4.
[31]. Letter 101, 3.
[32]. Quintilian, De institut. orat. 9, 4, 51.
[33]. Teaching Christianity IV, 5, 7.
[34]. De inventione rhetorica 1, 1, cited in Teaching Christianity IV, 5, [35]. On the relation between wisdom and eloquence see my study "Sapientia ed eloquentia nell'insegnamento e nella prosa di S. Agostino," Conv. studio e aggiorn. Facoltà di Lettere crist. e class. Pontif. Instit. altioris Latinitatis Rome 20–21 marzo 1987 (Biblioteca di sienze religiose 80; Rome, 1988) 165–182.
[36]. See my essay, "La elocutio di S. Agostino nella riflessione di
Cassiodoro," in Miscellanea A. Trapè (= Augustinianum 25 [1985]) 385–403.
[37]. Teaching Christianity IV, 7, 11.
[41]. Ibid. IV, 7, 12.
[42]. Ibid., IV, 7, 11.
[43]. See my book, Dagli incisi al sermo commaticus (Bari, 1956) 22–
[44]. Teaching Christianity 4, 7, 13.
[53]. Ibid., IV, 7, 14.
[54]. Ibid., IV, 7, 15.
[56]. Ibid., IV, 7, 16. The whole of Amos 6:1–6 is cited here.
[57]. Ibid., IV, 7, 17.
[59]. See my essay, "Le scienze e la numerologia," 424–426.
[60]. Teaching Christianity IV, 7, 2-.
[62]. Ibid., IV, 15, 32.
[63]. Ibid., IV, 16, 33.
[64]. Ibid., citing Cicero, De oratore 29, 101.
[65]. Ibid., IV, 16, 34.
[66]. Ibid., IV, 18, 35.
[67]. Ibid., IV, 18, 36.
[68]. Ibid., IV, 18, 37.
[69]. Ibid., IV, 19, 38.
[70]. Ibid., IV, 20, 39.
[71]. Ibid., IV, 20, 40.
[72]. Ibid., IV, 20, 41.
[74]. Ibid., IV, 20, 42.
[75]. Ibid., IV, 20, 43.
[76]. Ibid., IV, 20, 44.
[77]. Ibid., IV, 21, 45.
[78]. Ibid., IV, 21, 46.
[79]. Ibid., IV, 21, 47.
[80]. Ibid., IV, 21, 48.
[81]. Ibid., IV, 21, 49.
[82]. Ibid., IV, 21, 50.
[83]. Ibid., IV, 22, 51.
[84]. Ibid., IV, 23, 52.
[85]. Ibid., IV, 24, 53.
[87]. Ibid., IV, 24, 54.
[88]. Ibid., IV, 25, 55.
[89]. See Marin, "Retorica ed esegesi," 215–223.
[90]. Teaching Christianity IV, 8, 22–23.
[91]. Ibid., IV, 10, 25.
[93]. Ibid., IV, 11, 26.
[94]. Ibid., IV, 12, 27.
[95]. Ibid., IV, 14, 30.
[96]. Ibid., IV, 26, 56.
[99]. Ibid., IV, 27, 59.
[100]. Ibid., IV, 27, 60.
[101]. Ibid., IV, 28, 61.
[103]. Ibid., IV, 29, 62.
[105]. Ibid., IV, 30, 63. See my essay, "Esth. 14, 13: 'Tribue sermonem compositum in ore meo,'" Saggi patristici (Quaderni de Vetera Christianorum 5; Bari, 1971) 245–262.
[106]. Teaching Christianity IV, 31, 64.
Hermeneutical Principles of Saint Augustine in Teaching Christianity
I do not intend, in this introduction, to discuss the whole of Augustinian exegesis. In Books II and III of Teaching Christianity[1] Saint Augustine expounds a series of hermeneutical principles for use in the explanation of scripture. My purpose is to review these rules of interpretation and to ask what value they may still have today for both the exegete and the practitioner of biblical theology. In his prologue Augustine says: "There are some rules for dealing with the scriptures, which I consider can be not inappropriately passed on to students; enabling them to make progress not only by reading others who have opened up the hidden secrets of the divine literature, but also by themselves opening them up to yet others again." [2]
Moving on, he anticipates three objections from those who maintain that such rules for interpretation will either not be understood or that, in the case of some who do understand them, they will be found to be inapplicable or that there are some who are able to understand the scriptures even without these rules. Augustine answers that he would not be at fault if he were to point to the new moon but the other either did not see his finger or did see it but could not find the heavenly body to which it pointed. They must pray that the Lord will open their eyes.[3] To the third objection he gives a modest answer: his purpose is simply to teach the alphabet to those who are unable to read, so that they can then read on their own.
The first book of Teaching Christianity, which together with Books II and III was probably written in 397 and revised in 427,[4] at which time Book IV was added, contains a summary of Christian doctrine that is based on the distinction between "using" (uti) and "enjoying" (frui). Only the Trinity and the mysteries of faith are to be enjoyed for their own sake; everything else, including the scriptures, are to be used in order to obtain faith, hope, and love: So what all that has been said amounts to, while we have been dealing with things, is that the fulfillment and the end of the law and of all the divine scriptures is love.[5]
So if it seems to you that you have understood the divine scriptures, or any part of them, in such a way that by this understanding you do not build up this twin love of God and neighbor, then you have not yet understood them.[6]
It is this principle of love as the ultimate goal of understanding of the Bible that relativizes, in Augustine's view, the efforts of a hypercritical exegesis that has knowledge as its sole aim. This does not mean that use should not be made of a "scientific" methodology, because if people who while misinterpreting the literal meaning nonetheless arrive at charity, they are like people who go astray from the right road but then by wandering across a field nonetheless accidentally reach their destination. Such persons should be corrected so that this sort of thing may not happen again.[7] It must be acknowledged, however, that many have reached the perfection of the three theological virtues even without books. For such persons the scriptures serve solely for the instruction of others.[8]
Fundamental to Augustinian hermeneutics is the distinction between thing and sign (although signs, too, are things which, in addition to the image of themselves which they transmit to the senses, by their presence bring something else to mind).[9] Signs can be natural or given (intentional, conventional),[10] and the latter in turn can be proper or metaphorical.[11] This confused multiplicity of signs is the source of the obscurity of the scriptures: "This is all due, I have no doubt at all, to divine providence, in order to break in pride with hard labor, and to save the intelligence from boredom, since it readily forms a low opinion of things that are too easy to work out." [12] At the same time, there are very many clear passages that rouse a hunger for further knowledge; in fact, there is almost nothing in obscure passages that is not also to be found in those that are clearer. [13]
Certain moral dispositions are essential if these obscurities are to be mastered, above all fear of God and humility, especially when scripture is rebuking us for our vices, lest we think we know better than what is written, even if obscurely.[14] Given these two stages in achieving wisdom through the reading of the sacred text, we must persevere in knowledge, fortitude, counsel, the interior purification of the heart and, finally, in wisdom itself.[15]
Given the intermingling of clear and obscure passages, we must, logically, read "all" the scriptures, but only those that are "canonical." The apocrypha are useful only to those who are better instructed. In Augustine's time there was still some uncertainty as to what the canon included.[16] In Book II, 8, 13, he lists all the books which he considers canonical; his list will be defined, unchanged, at the Council of Trent. [17] What is of interest to us is the criterion which Augustine uses in determining the canonicity of a book: They will hold, therefore, to this standard with the canonical scriptures, that they will put those accepted by all the Catholic Churches before those which some do not accept; among these which are not accepted by all they will prefer those accepted by most of them, and by the greater ones among them, to those which fewer Churches and ones of lesser authority regard as canonical. Should they, however, discover that different ones are held to be canonical by the majority of Churches from those so regarded by the greater Churches—though this would be very unlikely—I consider that both should be regarded as having equal authority.[18]
This means that recognition of canonicity depends on their apostolic antiquity or else the number of Churches in which the books are publicly read. Augustine accepts the long canon, which includes the deuterocanonical books; this is not surprising in view of his attachment to the Septuagint version.
Those who read the whole of the scripture with the proper dispositions will find in the clear passages "everything that touches on faith, and good morals, that is to say hope and charity, which we dealt with in the previous book." [19] Therefore the rules of interpretation that follow will help in explaining the more difficult passages.
Difficulties can arise even from proper signs, that is, from words taken in their literal meaning. The first rule to be followed in shedding light on such doubtful words is to refer to the original languages, Hebrew and Greek. Even in the Latin manuscripts words can be found that are transcribed in their original Hebrew form, for example, amen, alleluia, raca, and hosanna; these are not translated either out of respect for their antiquity or because they are untranslatable. To understand these words one must know Hebrew, but not only for the sake of these few words: "But it is not because of these few words, which can very easily be noted and asked about, that knowledge of these languages is necessary." [20]
In fact, Augustine complains that ever since the early days of the Church people who thought they understood Greek began to make translations into Latin, with the result that there were now so many conflicting translations. He complains that while those who have translated the Bible from Hebrew into Greek can be counted (he is referring to the Septuagint, the "Seventy"), translators from Greek into Latin are countless. Therefore the need of going back to the original languages.[21] He reviews some examples of conflicting translations to which he attempts to give an interpretation that fits both meanings. He adds that certain translations of idiomatic phrases have no meaning in Latin and give rise to barbarisms.[22]
Readers can find difficulty not only with ambiguous words but also with words or phrases unknown to them. When this happens, readers should either question those who speak the languages involved or learn these languages themselves, but if this is impossible they should consult the various translations, as long as the manuscripts of these are correct: "The first thing, in fact, to which those who wish to know the divine scriptures should devote their careful attention and their skill is the correction of their copies, so that the uncorrected ones give way to the corrected ones, which they derive, that is, from one and the same type of translation." [23] Augustine did not have the copyist's skill of a Jerome[24] so as to draw up rules for textual criticism, but he did know that preference should be given to more faithful manuscripts and to translations that followed the original more closely.
Among the various translations preference should be given to the "Itala," because it sticks more closely to the words and has a clearer grasp of the thought.[25] Scholars know the difficulty of identifying this "Itala," the only mention of which occurs in this passage. In the books which the Benedictines of Beuron already examined for their critical edition of the Vetus Latina, they have identified a certain number of passages which differ from those current in Africa, but they have not been willing to classify them under any of the titles thought up by earlier scholars, such as the "European Version" or the "Itala." [26]
From 400 on, Augustine used Jerome's revision (the Vulgate) of the four gospels in his church at Hippo, but he did not adopt Jerome's translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew, either because some other bishops had had negative reactions to it from their congregations[27] or because he himself had theological reasons for preferring the Septuagint.
In fact, "for correcting any Latin versions at all, Greek ones should be employed, among which, as regards the Old Testament, that of the Seventy Translators has the greatest authority." [28] From the City of God we know that Augustine was familiar with the other Greek translations, those of Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, and "the Fifth Edition." [29]
His preference for the Septuagint was based on the story told by "Aristeas," that seventy translators had been closed up in separate rooms and had produced translations that were identical down to the least details. He interprets this as the work of the Holy Spirit who made use of an order from King Ptolemy to impel the translators to produce a version, suitable for the Gentiles among whom the gospel would later be preached, of the very scriptures that had so jealously been kept secret by the Jews: For this reason, even if things are found in Hebrew codices that differ from what the Seventy have put, in my judgment they should give way to what divine providence has achieved through these men; and that is that the books which the Jewish people were unwilling to share with others, whether out of a religious sense or out of envy, were made available by the Lord, using the royal authority of Ptolemy, to the nations that were going to believe. And so it can well be the case that these translated the Hebrew in such a way as the Holy Spirit, who was guiding them and gave them all one mouth, judged would be most suitable for the Gentiles…. As for the books of the New Testament, if there are any hesitations about the text due to the variety of Latin translations, nobody doubts that one should bow to the authority of the Greek texts, and of those especially which are to be found in the more learned and careful Churches.[30]
There is no difficulty with Augustine's approach to the New Testament. But when it comes to his preference for the Septuagint over the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, history has not gone along with him, although some critics are having second thoughts today.[31] The supremacy of the Vulgate in later centuries and its "canonization" by the Council of Trent[32] have proved Jerome right. Pius XII, for his part, prescribed the use of the original texts, while excusing Augustine on the grounds that Hebrew was not very well-known in his day.[33] In fact, nowadays all translations of the Old Testament into the vernacular are made from the Hebrew, but with an eye on the Septuagint. Today, however, some critics are taking more seriously the view that the Septuagint was inspired, even if no one believes anymore in the story told by Aristeas. It is a fact that the majority of the citations of the Old Testament in the New are taken from the Septuagint, even where this differs from the original and that some theological teachings, such as the virginity of Our Lord in Isaiah 7:14 (Mt 1:23), are based on the Septuagint.
Perhaps the "divine providence" of which Augustine speaks can be explained in a more scientific way, in accord with contemporary research, without appealing to a direct inspiration. Several centuries had passed between the composition of the old books in Hebrew and their translation into Greek; during these centuries the people were maturing religiously and theologically under the guidance of the Spirit of God. In the last centuries before the Christian era, then, certain doctrines had reached their mature form—especially doctrines on the resurrection, immortality, the angels, and the Bible itself—and are reflected in the Greek translation, which at times not only translated but interpreted the Hebrew. Thus, for example, in Job 42:17, Isaiah 26:19, and Daniel 12:2, which speak of resurrection, and in Deuteronomy 32:8, where it is said that "the children of Israel" become "the angels of the nations." The anthropomorphisms of the scriptures are toned down, and the books are given a different order. All this does not amount to the extensive reinterpretation that we find in the targums, but it does point to a type of interpretation that "updates" the thought of Israel in keeping with the final stages of divine revelation and makes it easier for Christians to use this translation when the right time comes.
The reason why Augustine went into the question of the necessity of knowing the original languages was to show the importance of "proper meanings" in the practice of interpretation. But the original languages play no less necessary a part in the interpretation of "metaphorical signs," especially when it comes to unlocking for us the meaning of certain proper names that have an exegetical interest (for example, the name "Siloam" in John 9:7[34]). But to this end there is also utility in all the human sciences and arts that help us understand a work like the Bible, which is at once historical and literary and belongs to a different environment. Augustine mentions in particular the natural sciences, music, the numerical sciences, astronomy (not astrology), art, history, the crafts, dialectic, logic, eloquence, and mathematics. All these sciences should be learned, not to make us proud but to serve the understanding of scripture, which increases love. They belong now by right no longer to the pagans who invented them but to Christians. Thus is fulfilled what was written about the Hebrews: "And they shall despoil the Egyptians!" [35]
The third book of Teaching Christianity begins with a recapitulation of what has been said about the value of all this information in the understanding of scripture. It is evident that this insight of Augustine is, with the necessary adjustments, a surprisingly modern one. It shows a mind open to the contemporary culture that would later serve Boethius in laying the foundations of the medieval trivium and quadrivium. If Augustine values all these forms of knowledge in relation to charity, it is because he is speaking of them in the context of the understanding of scripture; he is speaking of them, that is, as what we today call "the auxiliary sciences to be used in the study of the Bible." The sciences are no longer the ones listed by Augustine, but the idea is inspired by the same purpose, namely, to shed light on the proper and metaphorical language of the text. When we speak today of identifying the literary genres of the Bible through study of the contemporary literatures, we are only extending the application of Augustine's method to explain this particular "metaphorical language."
In the third book Augustine speaks of the ambiguities that can arise in the reading and interpretation of scripture, and he begins with the ambiguities connected with ambiguities in words used in their proper sense. In this context he sets down some basic hermeneutical principles.
The first ambiguity can arise from the division of words or of the period, or else from pronunciation and intonation— a type of ambiguity that is explicable from the lack of punctuation and of the separation of words in the codices. The Doctor from Hippo writes in this connection: When, on paying closer attention you still see that it is uncertain how something is to be phrased, or how to be pronounced, you should refer it to the rule of faith, which you have received from the plainer passages of scripture and from the authority of the Church, about which we dealt sufficiently when we were talking in the first book about things. But if both possibilities, or all of them, if it is a multiple ambiguity, are consonant with the faith, it remains to refer to the whole context, to the sections that precede and that follow the ambiguous passage, holding it in the middle between them, so that we may see which of the several meanings that present themselves the context will vote for and allow to fit in with itself.[36]
This passage sets down some extremely valuable principles. In modern terms Augustine is saying that to resolve a difficulty met in reading we must have recourse first to the "analogy of scripture," then to the "analogy of faith," and thirdly to the immediate context. Since he deals in the second and third books with signs, the author gives us the key to his lengthy treatment of the principles of faith in the first book. There (he says) he was dealing with the "things" that will serve as the contextual criterion for interpreting ambiguous signs. Here, in section 3, he gives a very clear example: were we to read "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God was. This Word was in the beginning with God," it would be an Arian reading and to be excluded a priori.[37] This priority given to the analogy of scripture and the analogy of faith is a patristic datum that goes back to Irenaeus and Origen. It is a purely negative principle, that is, it excludes readings that are philologically possible but theologically erroneous, and has to do with discovering the literal (not the spiritual) sense of the text in itself. It presupposes, of course, that God is the sole author both of all the scriptures and of ecclesial traditions, a point not to be contradicted.
This method of interpreting the scriptures has always annoyed those who want philology to be the sole criterion. These critics do not realize that the criterion which they regard as unacceptable was already used by those, whether Jewish or Christian, who accepted a book into the canon, in which different points of view, such as those of Paul and John, can coexist, without any of them, in the mind of the Church, contradicting the rule of faith. "Where, however, an ambiguity can be resolved neither by the standard of faith nor by the actual context of the passage, there is no objection to your phrasing it in any of the ways that are open to you." [38]
Augustine is too easily satisfied here and finds ingenious explanations for two possible readings. The reason is that for him "context" means only the proximate context. He seems to neglect the remote context, whether historical or theological, in the thinking of the biblical writer he is discussing, even though in practice he sometimes appeals to this remote context. His introduction to his commentary on the Letter to the Galatians is like that of any modern handbook, and it is to be expected that this initial viewpoint would condition the entire commentary.
Up to this point in the third book Augustine has spoken of the method for resolving ambiguities arising from proper language. From Chapter 5, section 9, onward, he deals with metaphorical language. This part of the work is important because it raises the question not only of how to distinguish metaphors but also of how to recognize the spiritual and allegorical meaning of a passage.
The letter kills, but the spirit gives life (2 Cor 3:6). This is the principle that guides Augustine through this entire discussion: "When something that is said figuratively, you see, is taken as though it were meant in its proper literal sense, we are being carnal in our way of thinking." [39]
The distinction between metaphor and spiritual sense is based on another, that between useful signs and useless signs. The metaphors found in, for example, pagan literature are useless, and anyone who feeds on them feeds, like the prodigal son, on acorns, which are good only for pigs. Useful signs, on the other hand, are those which signify the new dispensation that has been inaugurated by the resurrection of Christ. Those who use useless signs or who use useful signs but without knowing that they are signs are living in slavery, enslavement to the flesh (carnaliter). Meanwhile, God has destroyed everything to which useless signs referred and has freed the Gentiles so completely that they will not serve even under useful signs but will "exercise their minds in the spiritual understanding of them." [40]
The Jews, on the contrary, served under useful signs, that is, signs that did not point simply to themselves, but what happened was this: Those, you see, who practice or venerate some kind of thing which is a significant sign, unaware of what it signifies, are enslaved under signs; while those who either carry out or venerate useful signs established by God, fully understanding their force and significance, are not in fact venerating what can be seen and passes away, but rather that reality to which all such things are to be referred. Such people are spiritual and free even during the time of slavery, in which it is not yet opportune for carnal spirits to have those signs openly explained to them, because they still need to be broken in under their yoke. Such spiritual people, however, were the patriarchs and prophets.[41]
In other words, freedom and spirituality depend on two things: the usefulness of the sign used, which refers to a future higher value, and the awareness of this reference. Even those who do not know what the sign signifies but do understand it to be a sign are free. "But it is better even to be oppressed by signs that are useful though not understood, than by interpreting them in a useless manner to withdraw one's neck from the yoke of slavery, only to insert it in the noose of error." [42] It is better to use a useful sign without knowing its meaning than to go astray by misinterpreting it. Augustine includes the Christian sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist in the category of useful signs instituted by Christ as a compendium of eschatological values.
According to the Bishop of Hippo. the opposite error is to interpret proper language as figurative. The method for discovering which of the two kinds of language is before us is to see whether the text inspires faith and charity; if it does not, it is to be interpreted figuratively.[43] It is easy for people who judge their own morals by relation to their time and place to give a figurative interpretation to everything in the scriptures that does not fit in with current custom. Scripture, however, gives us an unchanging standard: Scripture, though, commands nothing but charity, or love, and censures nothing but cupidity, or greed, and that is the way it gives shape and form to human morals.
Again, if people's minds are already in thrall to some erroneous opinion, whatever scripture asserts that differs from it will be reckoned by them to be said in a figurative way. The only thing, though, it ever asserts is Catholic faith, with reference to things in the past and in the future and in the present. It tells the story of things past, foretells things future, points out things present; but all these things are of value for nourishing and fortifying charity or love, and overcoming and extinguishing cupidity or greed.[44]
On the contrary, if certain ways of acting that are described in the scriptures are unseemly for holy persons, they are to be interpreted figuratively. It is to this category that Augustine's comment on Jacob's "lie" belongs: "It is not a lie but a mystery." [45] Here he gives a spiritual interpretation of the passage in John 12:3 on the woman who anoints the feet of Jesus with a precious ointment, because such a gesture cannot be put in the category of secular gestures: "The good odor, after all, stands for the good reputation…." [46]
Those not well disposed toward Augustine would call the first example a muddle rather than an explanation, and would say of the second that it is not a reason but the manifestation of a complex. The Bishop of Hippo is speaking here as a pastor rather than as a scholarly lecturer; his concern is not to scandalize his hearers rather than to look for the objective truth. In any case, apart from these last remarks, the criteria given for distinguishing the figurative sense from the proper come very close to the theoria of the Antiochene school, although there is lacking in Augustine the extensive application of it to prophecy, such as is found in the writings of the Antiochene school.[47]
Augustine's pastoral concern emerges clearly in the following summary: So then, all the things, or practically all of them, which are contained in the books of the Old Testament, are to be taken not only in their literal sense, but also as having a figurative sense. All the same, when the people in the narratives, which the reader takes in the proper literal sense, were praised for doing things that are abhorrent to the manners of good men and women who keep God's commandments after the Lord's coming, the reader should not take the actual deeds as models for moral behavior, but should try to understand their figurative meaning. There are many things, after all, which at that time were done out of duty that now can be only done out of lust.[48]
From this is it clear that Augustine accepts a literal sense everywhere, and, almost everywhere, a spiritual sense as well, that is, a scriptural sense that may help Christian faith and morals; but in the New Testament these morals have reached a point of maturity at which certain actions permitted under the old dispensation may not be done any longer. The term "figurative" can be applied to all those interpretations that Augustine gave in his sermons on the Old Testament, which he read with a Christian preunderstanding. This does not prevent his being aware that a word or phrase interpreted figuratively in one passage is not always to be so interpreted, and that the symbolism is not always the same; he gives as an example the word "leaven." [49]
We come now to two sections of Augustine's work that are very close to what Catholic exegetes call the "fuller sense" (sensus plenior). Because of its great importance I give the passage in its entirety.
When from the same words of scripture not just one, but two or more meanings may be extracted, even if you cannot tell which of them the writer intended, there is no risk if they can all be shown from other places of the holy scriptures to correspond with the truth. However, those who are engaged in searching the divine utterances must make every effort to arrive at the intention of the author through whom the Holy Spirit produced that portion of scripture. But as I say, there is nothing risky about it, whether they do get at this, or whether they carve out another meaning from those words which does not clash with right faith, and is supported by any other passage of the divine utterances. That author, in fact, possibly even saw this very meaning in the same words which we wish to understand; and certainly the Spirit of God who produced these texts through him foresaw without a shadow of doubt that it would occur to some reader or listener; or rather he actually provided that it should occur to him, because it is upheld by the truth. How, after all, could the divine scriptures make more abundant and generous provision than by ensuring that the same words could be understood in several ways, which are underwritten by other no less divine testimonies?
But where a possible meaning emerges which cannot be made entirely clear by other certain testimonies of the holy scriptures, it remains to elucidate it with arguments from reason, even if the writer whose words we are trying to understand did not perhaps intend that meaning. But this habit is risky; it is really much safer to walk along with the divine scriptures; when we wish to examine passages rendered obscure with words used metaphorically, either let something emerge from our scrutiny that is not controversial, or else if it is so, let the matter be settled from the same scripture by finding and applying testimonies from anywhere else in the sacred books.[50]
This is the passage in which Augustine speaks most clearly of the various senses of scripture. First of all, the true meaning of the Bible is the "meaning intended by the author," because it is properly this which is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and it is through the conscious intention of the author that God speaks. If due to difficulty in uncovering the original meaning of the author we are left with two or more different interpretations, we ought not to be dismayed, because it is not impossible that as he wrote the human author foresaw them. In any case, the divine author certainly foresaw them and may also have foreseen that the reader would see them. But there are criteria for deciding on the admissibility of these various senses. They are admissible only if they are justifiable by the analogy of scripture or the analogy of faith. We know that Augustine made use of the Neoplatonists to explain certain difficult passages, but he never recommends this as a regular practice; he always prefers that the meaning of a passage of scripture be confirmed by another passage of scripture, so as to remain safely within the thought of the author.
The very great usefulness of this principle is evident, for, while leaving open the possibility of an interpretation, or interpretations, that go beyond the exact meaning of the words, it closes the door to fanciful or arbitrary interpretations that depart from the language of the scriptures or the Church. Who will not be reminded, in this context, of the interpretations of the Old Testament that we find in the New (I am thinking of some obscure passages in Zechariah) or of the reinterpretation of other passages that has become quasi-official or even simply official in the Church? There can be a "sense of the author" and a "sense of the text" that are equally valid.
Augustine is also familiar with the use of tropes, or figures of speech, in scripture; he mentions allegory, enigma, and parable.[51] These are our "literary genres," but Augustine knew only those of the Latins and Greeks. If he had known those of the Semites he would have offered more "modern" interpretations, but, after all, we ourselves are hardly beginning to be familiar with them.
The third book of Teaching Christianity ends with the hermeneutical rules of Tychonius. This man, who died around 400 A.D., was a Donatist layman and the author of several books, among them a commentary on the Apocalypse; he was excommunicated by his sect because of his Catholic views, but he did not go over to Catholicism. Around 380 he had published a Book of Rules[52] for which Augustine had a high esteem, although he did not accept it blindly. Tychonius gives seven rules for the interpretation of scripture. Augustine accepts the number seven with a grain of salt, either because in his introduction Tychonius claims that these seven rules will help resolve all difficulties (a little more modesty would have done no harm!), or because Tychonius himself in, for example, his commentary on the Apocalypse makes use of other exegetical rules not included in these seven.[53] Here are the seven rules with Augustine's commentary.
1) "About the Lord and his body," that is, since Christ and his Church form a single person, it is perfectly legitimate to pass from the head to the body.[54] Augustine qualifies this by saying that we must understand what is proper to the one and the other. This Tychonian principle has been extended in modern hermeneutics to what is now called the "corporate personality," a term coined by Wheeler Robinson. It says that in Semitic thought what is said of the founder of a family is also being said of his descendants, and that there are also certain figures, for example, the Servant of Yahweh or the Son of Man, which are both an individual and a collectivity. For this reason we often find in messianic prophecies passages which in their original meaning apply to Israel but which are understood as Christological (Hos 6:2), while Psalm 22, which is applied first to Christ, is also applicable to Christians in their own persecutions.
2) "About the twofold body of the Lord": this title does not please Augustine, who says: "It should not have been called that, because that which will not remain with him for ever in eternity is not really the body of the Lord…. It is not only in eternity, but even now that hypocrites should not be said to be with him, even though they appear to be in his Church." [55] He would prefer to say: "About the Church as a mixture." The point of Tychonius' rule is that many scriptural statements that praise or berate "Israel" (that is, the Church) are to be applied only to those categories that they have in view, whether the good or the bad, and not to all without distinction.
3) "About the promises and the law" or, in Augustinian terms, "about the spirit and the letter" or "about grace and commandments." He knows that this teaching is in itself a problem rather than a rule for resolving other problems, as the Pelagian controversy shows. Tychonius "did some good work in his treatment of it, but still left something to be desired," [56] insofar as he interpreted it in a Semipelagian manner, that is, he said that the beginning of faith comes from us and is something we merit; this, of course, Augustine refutes.
4) "About species and genus." Augustine prefers to say "about the part and the whole." In other words, everything scripture says about a part, for example, about a city such as Babylon, applies to the entire country; or about a person, "as when things said about Solomon exceed his limitations, and becomes luminously clear when referred to Christ or to the Church, of which Solomon is a part." [57] Note the phrase "transcend his limitations" (eius modum excedunt), which is a principle of Origen but is broadly applied by all of Augustine's predecessors. It is precisely in accord with this rule of Tychonius that Augustine attributes to the universal Church what is said of the true Israel (for example, in Ez 36:17–29). 5) "About times": this is the rule about the part and the whole as applied to time; for example, the three days before Christ's resurrection, where a part of a day is regarded as an entire day. A number can, then, also be a figure, as when "seven" is used for "many."
6) "Recapitulation": when the scriptures do not carefully observe the temporal order of events but confuse the before and the after, it is up to the reader to restore the missing order.[58]
7) "About the devil and his body": This is Tychonius' first rule, but applied now to the wicked, who form the body of the devil.
Augustine ends his treatise on interpretation with an exhortation to expositors who are at a loss: "They should pray for understanding." [59]
What the holy Doctor says of Tychonius' rules for interpretation can be said of his own: they are not comprehensive. He himself makes use of still others in his own exegesis. A complete treatise on Augustinian exegesis would have to start from his exegetical practice rather than from his rules for interpretation. However, what he does offer us by way of theory is very useful for a better understanding not only of his own exegesis but of ours as well. It is of basic importance in dealing with Augustine to distinguish between his exposition of the scriptures in his preaching, in which he goes in extensively for the spiritual meaning, and his strictly theological exegesis, especially in controversy, in which his adversaries are perhaps better exegetes from a philological point of view but not from a theological.[60] What saved him from the errors into which his adversaries constantly fell is his constant appeal to the rule of faith, which makes him, if not always a very good philologist, one of the greatest biblical theologians in the history of Christian literature.[61]
Prosper Grech, O.S.A.
Notes
[1]. PL 34:15–122; CSEL 80:3–169. This essay is a revision of an earlier article, "I principi ermeneutici di Sant'Agostino: una valutazione," Lateranum, n.s. 48 (1982) 209–223.
[2]. Teaching Christianity, prologue 1.
[3]. Ibid., prologue 2–3.
[4]. Revisions II, 4, 30.
[5]. Teaching Christianity I, 35, 39.
[6]. Ibid., I, 36, 40.
[7]. Ibid., I, 30, 41.
[8]. Ibid., I, 39, 43.
[9]. Ibid., II, 1, 1.
[10]. Ibid., II, 1, 2.
[11]. Ibid., II, 10, 15.
[12]. Ibid., II, 6, 7.
[13]. Ibid., II, 6, 8.
[14]. Ibid., II, 7, 9.
[15]. Ibid., II, 7, 10.
[16]. See I. Ruwet, Institutiones Biblicae (Rome, 1951) 132–141.
[17]. See H. Denzinger and A. Schönmetzer (eds.), Enchiridion symbolorum (32nd ed.; Freiburg, 1963) 1502–1503; J. Neuner and J. Dupuis (eds.), The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church (rev. ed.; Staten Island, NY, 1983) nos. 211– 212, or N. P. Tanner (ed.), Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (2 vols.; London and Washington, D.C., 1990) II, 663–664.
[18]. Teaching Christianity II, 8, 12.
[19]. Ibid., II, 9, 14.
[20]. Ibid., II, 11, 16.
[22]. Ibid., II, 12, 17—13, 20.
[23]. Ibid., II, 14, 21.
[24]. See, for example, Jerome, Comment. in Hier. 31, 2, 15.
[25]. Teaching Christianity II, 15, 22.
[26]. For a modern discussion see The Cambridge History of the Bible I,
370–374.
[27]. See Letter 71, 3, 5.
[28]. Teaching Christianity II, 15, 22.
[29]. City of God XVIII, 43.
[30]. Teaching Christianity II, 15, 22.
[31]. There is no doubt, of course, about the criticial vaue of the Septuagint for emending the Hebrew text; it is thought that the Septuagint reflects the Alexandrian tradition of the Hebrew text.
[32]. Denzinger-Schönmetzer, 1506; Neuner and Dupuis, no. 214; Tanner, II, 664.
[33]. Pius XII, Encyclical Letter Divino afflante Spiritu.
[34]. Teaching Christianity II, 16, 23.
[35]. Ibid., II, 16, 24—42, 63.
[36]. Ibid., III, 2, 2.
[37]. Ibid., III, 2, 3.
[38]. Ibid., III, 2, 5.
[39]. Ibid., III, 5, 9.
[40]. Ibid., III, 8, 12.
[41]. Ibid., III, 9, 13.
[43]. Ibid., III, 10, 14.
[44]. Ibid., III, 10, 15.
[45]. Against Lying 10, 24.
[46]. Teaching Christianity III, 12, 18.
[47]. See B. de Margerie, Introduction à l'histoire de l'exégèse I, 188–
[48]. Teaching Christianity III, 22, 32.
[49]. Ibid., III, 24, 35.
[50]. Ibid., III, 27, 38—28, 39.
[51]. Ibid., III, 39, 41.
[52]. See Liber Regularum, ed. F. C. Burkitt (Texts and Studies III/1;
Cambridge, 1894).
[53]. Teaching Christianity III, 30, 43.
[54]. Ibid., III, 31, 44.
[55]. Ibid., III, 32, 45.
[56]. Ibid., III, 33, 46.
[57]. Ibid., III, 34, 47.
[58]. Ibid., III, 36, 52–54.
[59]. Ibid., III, 37, 56.
[60]. In Letter 93, 8, he says, in fact, that a valid theological argument can be derived only from the literal sense.
[61]. To be added here is what Augustine says in The Advantage of Believing 3 (PL 42:68) and Saint Thomas cites in Summa theologica i, q. 1, a. 10, as follows: "Scripture which is entitled the Old Testament has a fourfold meaning, namely according to history, to etiology, to analogy, to allegory." Saint Thomas does not regard this as a valid objection to his own fourfold division into the literal, allegorical, tropological, and anagogical senses, and he comments as follows on Augustine: "These three, history, etiology, and analogy, are grouped under the one general heading of the literal sense. For as Saint Augustine explains in the same place, you have history when any matter is straightforwardly recorded; etiology when its cause is indicated, as when our Lord pointed to men's hardness of heart as the reason why Moses allowed them to set aside their wives; analogy when the truth of one scriptural passage is shown not to clash with the truth of another. Of the four senses enumerated in the argument, analogy stands alone for the three spiritual senses of our exposition" (Summa theologiae I. Christian Theology [Ia, I], trans. T. Gilby [New York, 1964] 37, 39).