Learning to Read Scripture with Augustine

A brief introduction to Augustine's "On Christian Doctrine"

I grew up in a tradition that was, commendably, committed to the authority and sufficiency of the Scriptures, but for many years as I attended those churches, I was largely unaware of the history and tradition associated with Christianity. What little knowledge we had of ancient creeds and the historic Church was largely viewed negatively. The Church had been corrupted by human traditions, and the creeds, even if their content was unobjectionable, were additions that usurped the Bible’s supremacy. We were taught to view the Church as the product of obedience to the pattern of Scripture. The rules for its organization and activity could be identified and implemented, and thus Christianity was restored, de novo.

I was twenty years old when I began to read the Church Fathers. I had always read the Bible as if I was the first to do so, as if each time I opened a passage, I was reading it for the first time. The patristic literature revealed the naivety and arrogance of that approach, however well intended. My paradigm for reading Scripture had been very mechanical and utilitarian. Choose a topic, assemble proof-texts, determine what ought to be believed or done, and then act upon it. There was little understanding of symbology and almost no knowledge of the typological aspects of God’s written revelation.

Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine discusses how Scripture is rightly read and understood. The Bible must be approached as a revelation of God, by God, in order to bring its hearers to God as the only proper object of true enjoyment (533). Scripture is not properly understood unless it is interpreted in such a way as to lead the reader to greater love for God and love for one’s neighbor which is the former’s necessary expression. It is not to be approached in a mechanical fashion, as if it were a puzzle to be solved or a recipe to be figured out. On the contrary,

… if a man fully understands that “the end of the commandment is charity, out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned,” and is bent upon making all his understanding of Scripture to bear upon these three graces, he may come to the interpretation of these books with an easy mind. (534)

Augustine develops the distinction between things and signs. Things simply stand for that which is an entity unto itself, its name having no significance other than to signify what it is. But a sign, which is also a thing, points beyond itself to something greater. Much of Books II and III are devoted to identifying and analyzing the various categories of signs found in the Christian Scriptures and explaining the rules for their proper interpretation.

This is not to suggest that the deeper, spiritual significance of Scripture is contrary to its simpler, surface level information. “The Holy Spirit has… so arranged the Holy Scriptures as by the plainer passages to satisfy our hunger, and by the more obscure to stimulate our appetite,” but still there is “almost nothing… dug out of those obscure passages which may not be found set forth in the plainest language elsewhere” (537). We are not to disregard the plain words of the Bible. It reveals facts to believe, commands to obey, and promises to embrace in faith. But this information is not merely to be read in a utilitarian fashion. We are to believe what it says and live in obedience to it while always remembering that it calls us beyond mere cognitive or behavior conformity. It calls us to wonder, worship, and walk in fellowship with the living, Triune God.

Edition Cited

Augustine. On Christian Doctrine. in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. First Series. Vol. 2. Edited by Philip Schaff. Translated by J. F. Shaw. 1887. Reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004.