Lectio Divina

Augustine and obscure passages

“In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it.”

from The Literal Meaning of Genesis
 
Alister McGrath (The Passionate Intellect) points out that by "literal" Augustine really meant "literary." Interpretations should be faithful to the literary intent of a passage. (For instance, a passage intended to be taken figuratively should be taken figuratively.)  Augustine applied this principle first of all to the interpretation of Genesis 1-2 leaving open the possibility of various potential intepretations of the text other than a literal six day creation. (Notice that Augustine also says that these different interpretations are not necessarily outside of what we might call orthodoxy.) Augustine's words however have a much broader application than just the beginning chapters of Genesis. It is helpful to always remember that our interpretations of a great number of difficult passages should be held onto lightly.

Augustine and figurative meaning

Any harsh and even cruel word or deed attributed to God or his saints that is found in the holy scriptures applies to the destruction of the realm of lust [i.e. it is to be taken only figuratively].

Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 3.39

"Natural" Readings

...What seems "ordinary" or "natural" as a reading of a particular biblical text may owe everything to habituation within a tradition (Think of the medieval reading of "repent" as "do penance"!) and nothing to actual awareness of what Paul was talking about. The legend that makes the point most strikingly is the Calvinist commentator who headed the story of Salome's dance and the Baptist's beheading as "the dangers of dancing." That seemed natural enough at the time.

N.T. Wright, Justification (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009), 83.

A Brief History of Interpretation

A very helpful summary of the history of biblical interpretation by Dr. Thomas Long...

http://community.tncc.edu/faculty/longt/REL200/intro-comp-interp.htm

Authoritative Hermeneutics

The plague of the Church for above a thousand years has been the enlarging our creed, and making more fundamentals than God ever made.

Baxter in Frederic W. Farrar, History of Interpretation Bampton Lectures 1885 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1961), 243.

Medieval Hermeneutics

The schoolmen fell into the fundamental error of supposing that an elaboration of phraseology is a science of theology, and that we can add to our knowledge of God by dialectic formulae about Him. Can any other name but nonsense be given to discussions as to whether the Father begets the Divine Essence, or whether the Divine Essence begets the Son? Whether the Essence begets the Essence, or whether the Essence itself neither begets nor is begotten? Such questions, as Erasmus says, it is more learned to ignore than to know. For all these years, he says, we have been frivolously caviling in the schools whether we should say that Christ is composed or that He consists of two nature; and whether the right word to use respecting their union is “conflate,” or “commixed,” or “conglutinate,” or “coagmentate,” or “copulated,” or “ferruminate.” What again, are we to say of the immense and long-continued discussions as to whether the host still continued to be the body of Christ if it was eaten by a mouse, or the wine to be his blood when tasted by an insect which had fallen into the chalice?

Frederic W. Farrar, History of Interpretation, Bampton Lectures 1885 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1961), 292-293.

Thomas Aquinas

The multiplicity of these senses does not produce equivocation or any other kind of multiplicity, seeing that these senses are not multiplied because one word signifies several things; but because the things signified by the words can themselves be types of other things. Thus in Holy Writ no confusion results, for all the senses are founded on one – the literal – from which alone can any argument be drawn, and not from those intended in allegory, as Augustine says. Nevertheless, nothing of Holy Scripture perishes on account of this, since nothing necessary to faith is contained under the spiritual sense which is not elsewhere put forward by the Scripture in its literal sense.

Summa Theologica 1.1.10 in McCartney, Let the Reader Understand (Bridge Point, 1994), 92.

Thomas Aquinas

The author of Holy Writ is God, in whose power it is to signify his meaning, not by words only (as man also can do) but by things themselves. So, whereas in every other science things are signified by words, this science has the property that the things signified by the words have themselves also a signification. Therefore that first signification whereby words signify things belongs to the first sense, the historical or literal. That signification whereby things signified by words have themselves also a signification is called the spiritual sense, which is based on the literal, and presupposes it. For as the apostle says (Heb. 10:1) the Old Law is a figure of the New Law and [Pseudo-] Dionysius says: “The New Law itself is a figure of future glory.” Again, in the New Law, whatever our Head has done is a type of what we ought to do. Therefore, so far as the things of the Old Law signify the things of the New Law, there is the allegorical sense; so far as the things done in Christ, or so far as the things which signify Christ, are types of what we ought to do, there is the moral sense. But so far as they signify what relates to eternal glory, there is the anagogical sense. Since the literal sense is that which the author intends, and since the author of Holy Writ is God, Who by one act comprehends all things by His intellect, it is not unfitting, as Augustine says (Confessions xii), if, even according to the literal sense, one word in Holy Writ should have several senses.

Summa Theologica 1.1.10 in McCartney, Let the Reader Understand (Bridge Point, 1994), 91.

Medieval Hermeneutics

Learn first what you should believe, and then go to the Bible and find it there.

Hugo of St. Victor

Medieval Hermeneutics

The Letter shows us what God and our fathers did; the allegory shows us where our faith is hid; the moral meaning gives us rules of daily life; the anagogy shows us where we end our strife.

in Klein, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Dallas: Word, 1993), 38.

Medieval Hermeneutics

The foundation is in the earth and it does not always have smoothly fitted stones. The superstructure rises above the earth, and it demands a smoothly proportioned construction. . . . Even so the Divine Page, in its literal sense, contains many things which seem both to be opposed to each other and, sometimes, to impart something which smacks of the absurd or the impossible. But the spiritual meaning admits no opposition; in it, many things can be different from one another, but none can be opposed. The fact, also that the first course of stones to be laid upon the foundation is placed flush with a tarut cord, and these are the stones upon which the entire weight of the others rests and to which they are fitted - is not without its meaning. For this is like a sort of second foundation and is the basis of the entire superstructure. This foundation both carries what is placed upon it and is itself carried by the first foundation. All things rest upon the first foundation but are not fitted to it in every way. As to the latter foundation, everything both rests upon it and is fitted to it. The first one carries the superstructure and underlies the superstructure. The second one carries the superstructure and is not only under the superstructure but part of it. The foundation which is under the truth as we have said stands for history, and the superstructure which is built upon it we have said suggests allegory.

Hugo of St. Victor, Didascalion VI.4. The Didascalion of Hugh of St. Victor, 2nd edition, trans. Jerome Taylor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991): 140-141.

Bad Exegesis

If anyone asserted that the Emperor is not the monarch of the entire world, he would be a heretic; for he would make a pronouncement contrary to the decision of the Church and contrary to the text of the Gospel which says: “A decree went forth from Caesar Augustus that a census should be taken of all the world,” as St. Luke has it, and so Christ, too, recognized him as emperor and master.

A 14th century Spanish lawyer quoted by Francisco de Vitoria in J. Daryl Charles, Between Pacifism and Jihad (Downers Grove: IVP, 2005), 57.