Preface
Showing that to teach rules for the interpretation of Scripture is not a superfluous
task
1. There are certain rules for the interpretation of Scripture which I think
might with great advantage be taught to earnest students of the word, that they
may profit not only from reading the works of others who have laid open the
secrets of the sacred writings, but also from themselves opening such secrets
to others. These rules I propose to teach to those who are able and willing
to learn, if God our Lord do not withhold from me, while I write, the thoughts
He is wont to vouchsafe to me in my meditations on this subject. But before
I enter upon this undertaking, I think it well to meet the objections of those
who are likely to take exception to the work, or who would do so, did I not
conciliate them beforehand. And if, after all, men should still be found to
make objections, yet at least they will not prevail with others (over whom they
might have influence, did they not find them forearmed against their assaults),
to turn them back from a useful study to the dull sloth of ignorance.
2. There are some, then, likely to object to this work of mine, because they
have failed to understand the rules here laid down. Others, again, will think
that I have spent my labour to no purpose, because, though they understand the
rules, yet in their attempts to apply them and to interpret Scripture by them,
they have failed to clear up the point they wish cleared up; and these, because
they have received no assistance from this work themselves, will give it as
their opinion that it can be of no use to anybody. There is a third class of
objectors who either really do understand Scripture well, or think they do,
and who, because they know (or imagine) that they have attained a certain power
of interpreting the sacred books without reading any directions of the kind
that I propose to lay down here, will cry out that such rules are not necessary
for any one, but that everything rightly done towards clearing up the obscurities
of Scripture could be better done by the unassisted grace of God.
3. To reply briefly to all these. To those who do not understand what is here
set down, my answer is, that I am not to be blamed for their want of understanding.
It is just as if they were anxious to see the new or the old moon, or some very
obscure star, and I should point it out with my finger: if they had not sight
enough to see even my finger, they would surely have no right to fly into a
passion with me on that account. As for those who, even though they know and
understand my directions, fail to penetrate the meaning of obscure passages
in Scripture, they may stand for those who, in the case I have imagined, are
just able to see my finger, but cannot see the stars at which it is pointed.
And so both these classes had better give up blaming me, and pray instead that
God would grant them the sight of their eyes. For though I can move my finger
to point out an object, it is out of my power to open men's eyes that they may
see either the fact that I am pointing, or the object at which I point.
4. But now as to those who talk vauntingly of Divine Grace, and boast that they
understand and can explain Scripture without the aid of such directions as those
I now propose to lay down, and who think, therefore, that what I have undertaken
to write is entirely superfluous, I would such persons could calm themselves
so far as to remember that, however justly they may rejoice in God's great gift,
yet it was from human teachers they themselves learnt to read. Now, they would
hardly think it right that they should for that reason be held in contempt by
the Egyptian monk Antony, a just and holy man, who, not being able to read himself,
is said to have committed the Scriptures to memory through hearing them read
by others, and by dint of wise meditation to have arrived at a thorough understanding
of them; or by that barbarian slave Christianus, of whom I have lately heard
from very respectable and trustworthy witnesses, who, without any teaching from
man, attained a full knowledge of the art of reading simply through prayer that
it might be revealed to him; after three days' supplication obtaining his request
that he might read through a book presented to him on the spot by the astonished
bystanders.
5. But if any one thinks that these stories are false, I do not strongly insist
on them. For, as I am dealing with Christians who profess to understand the
Scriptures without any directions from man (and if the fact be so, they boast
of a real advantage, and one of no ordinary kind), they must surely grant that
every one of us learnt his own language by hearing it constantly from childhood,
and that any other language we have learnt,--Greek, or Hebrew, or any of the
rest,--we have learnt either in the same way, by hearing it spoken, or from
a human teacher. Now, then, suppose we advise all our brethren not to teach
their children any of these things, because on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
the apostles immediately began to speak the language of every race; and warn
every one who has not had a like experience that he need not consider himself
a Christian, or may at least doubt whether he has yet received the Holy Spirit?
No, no; rather let us put away false pride and learn whatever can be learnt
from man; and let him who teaches another communicate what he has himself received
without arrogance and without jealousy. And do not let us tempt Him in whom
we have believed, lest, being ensnared by such wiles of the enemy and by our
own perversity, we may even refuse to go to the churches to hear the gospel
itself, or to read a book, or to listen to another reading or preaching, in
the hope that we shall be carried up to the third heaven, "whether in the body
or out of the body," as the apostle says,and there hear unspeakable words, such
as it is not lawful for man to utter, or see the Lord Jesus Christ and hear
the gospel from His own lips rather than from those of men.
6. Let us beware of such dangerous temptations of pride, and let us rather consider
the fact that the Apostle Paul himself, although stricken down and admonished
by the voice of God from heaven, was yet sent to a man to receive the sacraments
and be admitted into the Church; and that Cornelius the centurion, although
an angel announced to him that his prayers were heard and his alms had in remembrance,
was yet handed over to Peter for instruction, and not only received the sacraments
from the apostle's hands, but was also instructed by him as to the proper objects
of faith, hope, and love. And without doubt it was possible to have done everything
through the instrumentality of angels, but the condition of our race would have
been much more degraded if God had not chosen to make use of men as the ministers
of His word to their fellow-men. For how could that be true which is written,
"The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are," if God gave forth no oracles
from His human temple, but communicated everything that He wished to be taught
to men by voices from heaven, or through the ministration of angels? Moreover,
love itself, which binds men together in the bond of unity, would have no means
of pouring soul into soul, and, as it were, mingling them one with another,
if men never learnt anything from their fellow-men.
7. And we know that the eunuch who was reading Isaiah the prophet, and did not
understand what he read, was not sent by the apostle to an angel, nor was it
an angel who explained to him what he did not understand, nor was he inwardly
illuminated by the grace of God without the interposition of man; on the contrary,
at the suggestion of God, Philip, who did understand the prophet, came to him,
and sat with him, and in human words, and with a human tongue, opened to him
the Scriptures. Did not God talk with Moses, and yet he, with great wisdom and
entire absence of jealous pride, accepted the plan of his father-in-law, a man
of an alien race, for ruling and administering the affairs of the great nation
entrusted to him? For Moses knew that a wise plan, in whatever mind it might
originate, was to be ascribed not to the man who devised it, but to Him who
is the Truth, the unchangeable God.
8. In the last place, every one who boasts that he, through divine illumination,
understands the obscurities of Scripture, though not instructed in any rules
of interpretation, at the same time believes, and rightly believes, that this
power is not his own, in the sense of originating with himself, but is the gift
of God. For so he seeks God's glory, not his own. But reading and understanding,
as he does, without the aid of any human interpreter, why does he himself undertake
to interpret for others? Why does he not rather send them direct to God, that
they too may learn by the inward teaching of the Spirit without the help of
man? The truth is, he fears to incur the reproach: "Thou wicked and slothful
servant, thou oughtest to have put my money to the exchangers." Seeing, then,
that these men teach others, either through speech or writing, what they understand,
surely they cannot blame me if I likewise teach not only what they understand,
but also the rules of interpretation they follow. For no one ought to consider
anything as his own, except perhaps what is false. All truth is of Him who says,
"I am the truth." For what have we that we did not receive? And if we have received
it, why do we glory, as if we had not received it?
9. He who reads to an audience pronounces aloud the words he sees before him:
he who teaches reading, does it that others may be able to read for themselves.
Each, however, communicates to others what he has learnt himself. Just so, the
man who explains to an audience the passages of Scripture he understands is
like one who reads aloud the words before him. On the other hand, the man who
lays down rules for interpretation is like one who teaches reading, that is,
shows others how to read for themselves. So that, just as he who knows how to
read is not dependent on some one else, when he finds a book, to tell him what
is written in it, so the man who is in possession of the rules which I here
attempt to lay down, if he meet with an obscure passage in the books which he
reads, will not need an interpreter to lay open the secret to him, but, holding
fast by certain rules, and following up certain indications, will arrive at
the hidden sense without any error, or at least without falling into any gross
absurdity. And so although it will sufficiently appear in the course of the
work itself that no one can justly object to this undertaking of mine, which
has no other object than to be of service, yet as it seemed convenient to reply
at the outset to any who might make preliminary objections, such is the start
I have thought good to make on the road I am about to traverse in this book...
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