Teaching Christianity (continued)
ungodly, who are after a fashion his body, and going to go with him into the torment of eternal fire, just as Christ is the head of the Church, which is his body (Eph 1:22), that will be with him in the kingdom and everlasting glory. So just as with the first rule, which he calls about the Lord and his body, one has to be on the alert to understand, when scripture is speaking about one and the same person, what fits the head and what the body; in the same way too with this last rule, something can sometimes be said against the devil which could more properly be acknowledged as not referring to him so much as to his body. He has this, not only in those who are manifestly outsiders (1 Cor 5:12), but also in those who, while belonging to him, are for a time mixed up in the Church, until each one departs this life, or the chaff is separated from the wheat at the final winnowing.
What is written in Isaiah, for example: How he has fallen from heaven, Lucifer rising in the morning, and the rest, which was all said under the figure of the king of Babylon about or against the same person, is in the actual context of the passage to be understood of course of the devil. And yet what it goes on to say there in the same place, He has been crushed into the earth, the one who sends to all the nations (Is 14:12), does not altogether fit the head himself. Because even if it is the devil who sends his angels to all the nations, still it is his body, not himself, that is crushed into the earth —except that he himself is in his body, which on being crushed becomes dust which the wind chases away from the face of the earth (Ps 1:4).
56. All these rules, however, except the one which is called "about the promises and the law," result in one thing being understood from another; and this is the peculiarity of figurative speech, which extends far wider than can be all grasped, as far as I can see, by any one person. Because wherever it appears that one thing is said for another to be understood, you have a case of figurative speech, even if the name of that figure is not found in the formal theory of rhetoric. When this occurs where it is usual for it to do so, the understanding can follow without any difficulty. But when it occurs where it is not usual, there is difficulty in understanding it, for some people more, for others less, according as different people have greater or lesser talents from God, or receive more or less help from him.
Accordingly we would remind students of this venerable literature of what we said above in discussing words used in their proper sense, where things are to be understood just as they are stated,[80] and warn them that in the same way in their metaphorical use, which introduces figurative expressions, in which one thing is to be understood from another, which we have now dealt with sufficiently up to this point, as I think, they should familiarize themselves with the kinds of expression employed in the holy scriptures and be on the alert to observe how things are commonly said in them, and to commit it to memory. But much more important than that, and supremely necessary, is that they should pray for understanding. After all, in this very literature which they are eager to study, they read that the Lord gives wisdom, and from his face come knowledge and understanding (Prv 2:6). From him indeed it is that they have received their interest and eagerness to study, if it is qualified by loving piety.
But that is enough said now about signs, so far as words are concerned. It remains for me to speak in the next volume what the Lord may grant me to say about communicating the things we come to understand.
Notes
[1]. The examples that follow are, of course, all in Augustine's Latin text of scripture, and do not usually occur in an English translation, which may well have its own. So I regret that the rest of this section will be full of Latin texts, phrases and words, which will be translated and explained as necessary in the notes.
[2]. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was"; so the next phrase reads, "This Word was in the beginning with God." The orthodox phrasing is, "… the Word was with God, and the Word was God; this was in the beginning with God."
[3]. "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us purify ourselves from every defilement of the flesh and of the spirit perfecting sanctification in the fear of God receive us; we have done nobody wrong." The first alternative offered—the universally accepted one—is to phrase the sentence, "let us purify ourselves from every defilement of the flesh and of the spirit," so that it would continue, though he neglects to say this, "perfecting our sanctification in the fear of God. Receive us." The other is to phrase, "let us purify ourselves from every defilement of the flesh," so that the next part of the sentence would be, "and perfecting the sanctification of the spirit in the fear of God receive us"—that is, in more tolerable English, "And receive us as we perfect the sanctification of the spirit in the fear of God."
[4]. In the Latin, between a percontatio and an interrogatio.
[5]. "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" The alternative in the Latin to this universally accepted way of reading the sentence is; "From Nazareth? Something good can come"—very far-fetched, even in the Latin.
[6]. "My bone/mouth is not hidden from you, which you have made in secret."
[7]. The Greek for "bone" and "mouth" respectively.
[8]. "About which I am warning you, as I have warned you before, that those who do such things will not gain possession of the kingdom of God"; praedico with a long i, perfect praedixi, meaning literally "say beforehand." The alternative, praedico with a short i, perfect praedicavi, means to preach or proclaim.
[9]. "That is why we have taken comfort, brothers, among you." But the alternative, he says, could be to read "brothers" as accusative, not vocative—and also incidentally, though he does not mention this, to read consolati sumus as a deponent active verb, rather than as passive reflexive—which would give the sense, "For this reason we have comforted the brothers among you."
[10]. "That is why we have taken comfort, our brothers, among you."
[11]. Literally he says, "But now this"—that is, adding a word—"is permitted rather riskily." But the instance he goes on to give does not illustrate how risky this procedure can be, but how it is occasionally permissible.
[12]. In the Latin, and literal English, "I die every day by your glory" could be taken to mean "Your glory is making me die every day." M adds the Greek word ne, which indicates the swearing of an oath, the text running, literally, "because in the Greek the voice of one swearing (ne) is clear…"
[13]. A grossly exaggerated statement which I am sure he would have modified, had he really revised this work, as well as completing it.
[14]. Reading a ceterarum gentium morte with one venerable manuscript mentioned by the Maurists, but not by the CCL editor, instead of a ceterarum gentium more, "from the custom of other nations," of the CCL and M text. Can one manuscript so outweigh all the rest? Yes, if it has the right feel to it, and if it is less likely to represent a copyist's or stenographer's correction than the alternative.
[15]. As, for example, the laws about the sabbath and about sacrifices.
[16]. A pedagogue; see Gal 3:24.
[17]. In the text, both of the Maurists and of CCL, section 11 begins with this.
[18]. See Eph 2:17.
[19]. Author unknown. The Latin text runs:
Tu, Neptune pater, cui tempora cana crepanti Cuncta salo resonant, magnus cui perpete mento Profluit oceanus, et flumina crinibus errant.
[20]. That he is alluding to Lk 15:16, in the parable of the prodigal son.
The general reference of Augustine's simile is to the gourd used as a rattle in the percussion department of a band—certainly of an African band. But that one could have used the pods of the carob tree—which is what the prodigal son would have liked to eat, according to my Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament—as a musical rattle seems to me improbable.
[21]. For the veil, in this grossly overloaded use of figurative language, see 2 Cor 3:12—4:4.
[22]. See Eph 2:17.
[23]. A reference to heretical sects, primarily to the Donatists, who did not appreciate that the ultimate thing, or res, signified by the sacraments is the grace of unity, the Catholic unity of the Church, the body of Christ. The persons referred to in the next sentence are presumably the ignorant Catholic faithful who have not been well instructed and who still bring an Old Testament mentality to the practice of their religion.
[24]. He has in mind 1 Tm 1:5, where love and faith are mentioned, while hope only figures in the guise of a good conscience.
[25]. If they are not, they will simply treat such precepts as false and invalid.
[26]. The two Latin words to which he thus gives his own very strict definition are flagitium and facinus. Their opposites in the next paragraph are utilitas and beneficentia.
[27]. He actually says, "those with whom greed itself is being overthrown," evertitus, a very curious way of putting it. So one sympathizes with the copyist of one manuscript who substitutes versatur for that word, giving the sense, "those with whom greed itself is dwelling."
[28]. He means, almost certainly, anyone in the pages of scripture.
[29]. See Jn 12:3.
[30]. He means the public baths.
[31]. See Lk 24:42–43; Gn 25:29–34.
[32]. See Heb 11.
[33]. Non eas habere flagitium est. This could, I suppose, be translated, "it is not an infamy to wear them"; so the BAC Spanish translation, Madrid, 1957. But if Augustine had really meant that, I am sure he would have dictated, eas habere flagitium non est.
[34]. I have to confess that I really have no idea what he is talking about in this sentence, except to say that libido can rear its ugly head in all sorts of ways; nor can I see how this is illustrated by the changes in what fashion decreed that Roman gentlemen should wear.
[35]. See section 16 above.
[36]. See also Mt 7:12.
[37]. Reading perdat with four manuscripts instead of perdet, "will throw it away" with M and CCL. These four are surely correct, in view of what he goes on to say. Perdet is the Vulgate reading, to which copyists were inclined to correct their author.
[38]. For example, Eph 5:25.
[39]. See 1 Cor 7:37.
[40]. See 1 Cor 7:2.7.
[41]. See Mt 19:12.
[42]. This is the recent professional rhetorician piling up the useless rhetoric of vituperation.
[43]. The Scylla and Charybdis theme; sailors were lured to their destruction in the whirlpools or on the rocks by sweet Siren voices.
[44]. See the story of David and Absalom, 2 Sm 15—18, especially
[45]. Here Augustine is reading back Christian or late Jewish conceptions of heaven and hell to the time and consciousness of David, who in all probability had no such ideas.
[46]. See 2 Sm 12:15–23.
[47]. Not quite accurate; he said the man deserved to die. See 2 Sm
12:1–14.
[48]. What a quite extraordinary inference!
[49]. See 1 Kgs 3:3–14; 11:1–13. The parallel account in 2 Chr 1—9 precisely does keep quiet about Solomon's aberrations.
[50]. As Augustine certainly insisted all the historical narratives should be taken, among which he and his contemporaries, and their successors up to modern times, included narratives we now know to be mythical or fictional, like the stories of Job and Jonah, and most of Gn 1—11.
[51]. Such as the famous one Augustine thought he could detect in the way Jacob cheated Esau out of his father's death-bed blessing, Gn 27:1–40; saying about Jacob's flagrant lie, verse 24, Non est mendacium sed mysterium (Against Lying, 10, 24), "It is not a lie but a mystery"—the mystery of Christ identifying himself with us sinners, and taking our sins upon himself, like the kid skins on Jacob's arms and neck. See Book I, note 45
[52]. See also Mt 23:12; Lk 14:11; 18:14.
[53]. In fact, that the passage or expression is to be taken as figurative.
He assumes no further assistance is needed for understanding the literal meaning—it means what it says! But this whole section does rather strike one as being pure flannel—something he would surely have either cut out or given some substance to, had he really revised the work.
[54]. It is here that Augustine laid the work aside, some time in 396 or 397, and only completed it some 30 years later. See Translator's Note and the extract from the Revisions that follows it.
[55]. See Rv 17:15; 19:6.
[56]. In the Latin text this one sentence paragraph begins section 37. I am not at all certain what it means. It begins Sic et aliae res non singulae, sed unaquaeque earum…; and trying to distinguish between the meaning of singulae and unaquaeque earum makes my head spin. If he means what I say he means, an instance of one figurative thing meaning several things at once, a case in point would be the text he has just quoted from Ps 75.
[57]. Here he is making the very important point that the Holy Spirit, as well as being active in inspiring the authors of the scriptures, is also present to inspire the readers and hearers, if their minds are open to his suggestions and his illumination.
[58]. I really do not know what meaning emerges from this sentence!
The meanings he is talking about, of course, are the figurative or secondary ones, what a later systematized theology of exegesis will call the spiritual senses.
[59]. See Book II, section 16 above.
[60]. This word will almost certainly not occur in any English translations; it occurs in the Greek and Latin versions in 1 Cor 13:12, and in Num 12:8. The best English equivalent, to my mind, is "riddle."
[61]. Is there anybody who ever does say this in English? But evidently the Latin, Sic floreas, was a common expression of good wishes; an English translation that we hardly think of now as metaphorical would be "May you flourish like that." The same consideration applies to fish pond, piscina, in the next sentence.
[62]. The most important, and neglected, trope in this respect is in my opinion irony—especially perhaps in the gospels where our Lord's words are being reported. We can no longer hear his tone of voice, and irony is the last thing most readers will suspect Jesus of