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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 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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