Teaching Christianity (continued)
pleasure (Prv 9:17). And these instances I have mentioned, of course, leave no doubts about their meaning, because to illustrate the point it was necessary to mention only clear cases.
There are others, however, where it is uncertain in what sense, good or bad, they should be taken, like: A goblet of pure wine in the hand of the Lord is full and mixed. It is uncertain whether it signifies the wrath of God, but not down to the final punishments, that is down to the dregs, or whether it rather signifies the grace of the scriptures passing from the Jews to the nations, because he turned it this way and that, while there remained with the Jews the observances which they understand in a carnal, literal sense, because its dregs have not been emptied out (Ps 75:8). But as an example of a thing put to signify, not contraries, but simply diverse realities, we have water signifying the people, as we read in the Apocalypse,[55] and the Holy Spirit in the text, Rivers of living water shall flow from his belly (Jn 7:38), and anything else that water can be taken to signify in other places where it is mentioned.
37. In the same way there are other things which, considered not in their general use, but in any particular instance, signify not only two different things but sometimes even several, depending on the place the sentence occurs in. [56]
26. But wherever their meaning is clear, there we must learn how they are to be understood in obscurer places. After all, there is no better way of understanding what was said to God in the verse, Take up arms and shield, and arise to help me (Ps 35:2), than from that other place where we read, Lord, you have crowned us as with the shield of your good will (Ps 5:12). This does not mean, however, that wherever we read of a shield as some kind of defense we should only take it to mean God's good will; it says elsewhere, after all, And the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the fiery arrows of the wicked one (Eph 6:16). Nor again, in spiritual equipment of this sort, should we confine faith only to the shield, since another place also talks of the breastplate of faith: Putting on, he says, the breastplate of faith and love (1 Thes 5:8).
27, 38. But 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 them, because it is upheld by the truth.[57] 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?
28, 39. 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.[58] 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