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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 labor 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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