Caitlin Griffith
Mr. Kuebler, Section 2
Theology
10-16-11
If it is determined that [a passage] is figurative, it is
easy to examine it in every way, having applied the rules concerning things
which we have discussed in the first book until we come to the lesson of truth,
especially when piety assists a practice fortified by effort.
Though Augustine
and Tychonius both have comprehensive rules used to understand figurative
passages, the end of this understanding is different for each of our authors. Augustine
believes charity is the end of an understanding of Scriptures, while Tychonius
is pursuing the understanding for its own sake. Due to these different ends,
the way the rules are applied are different, and Augustine’s way is exemplified
by the above passage – first he determines if a passage is figurative, then he
applies his rules to it. Tychonius believes his rules will be key to any part
of Scripture interpreted. Tychonius’ view might ostensibly lead him to a more
superficial understanding of figurative passages, as his end does not exceed
Scripture itself, while Augustine’s does, but it is Augustine who does not
explore the relationship between signs and things to thoroughly discuss the
thing which can be both the signified and the sign of another.
Augustine
sees Scripture as a formidably obscure work, yet it also manifests the will of
God.[1]
God is the author whom he calls “unchangeable wisdom”[2]
and so it must also be the most profound work in history. He attempts to
standardize a method of approaching this formidable work in order to make
obscure passages intelligible. His method is founded on an understanding of the
relationship between signs and things.
“A sign,” he explains, is a thing which, over and above the impression
it makes on the senses, causes something else to come into the mind as a
consequence of itself.”[3]
So a sign indicates a reality, and he further explains that this reality can be
either spiritual or comprehensible, i.e., something we can know in the world. His
example of smoke signifying fire is a basic sign-thing relationship. But when
he moves onto figurative signs, the thing signified is now more than the sign,
exceeding it in some way, to the point where the understanding based on the
sign is not immediately intuitive. Augustine gives the example of the word
‘bos’ representing the reality of ‘ox,’ but ‘ox’ is also a figurative sign
since it indicates the spiritual reality of evangelist. The sign causes the
mind to connect the reality to the sign because there is some similarity
between the sign and the signified. He says one can increase one’s understanding
of signs and things through mastery of many languages, a grasp of literary
devices,[4]
and an knowledge of comprehensible things like the things of natural science,
numbers, and history.
Tychonius’ rules also
use the relationship between signs and things to understand the figurative in
Scriptures. However, it is the different end of each method that causes
differences in the methods themselves. Augustine believes the end of the
understanding of Scriptures is charity. It is clearly manifested throughout On Christian Doctrine that he thinks
charity is the end, and he says, “we should clearly understand that the
fulfillment and the end of the Law, and of all Holy Scripture, is the love of
an object which is to be enjoyed, and the love of an object which can enjoy
that other in fellowship with ourselves.”[5]
Thus, errors are relativized as long as the end goal of charity is achieved. He
says
If a man draws a meaning from them
that may be used for the building up of love, even though he does not happen
upon the precise meaning which the author whom he reads intended to express in
that places, his error is not pernicious, and he is wholly clear from the
charge of deception.[6]
For a similar
reason, Augustine explains that interpreting passages in many varying ways is
acceptable, because charity may be achieved by many different means. He says,
If a man, in
searching the Scriptures endeavors to get at the intention of the author through
whom the Holy Spirit spake, whether he succeeds in this endeavor, or whether he
draws a different meaning from the words, but one that is not opposed to sound
doctrine, he is free from blame so long as he is supported by the testimony of
some other passage of Scripture.[7]
Scripture may be
used to explain itself since the Holy Spirit guides the whole of Scripture, and
therefore the end of the whole will be the end of all passages. This end can
even relativize Scripture itself. “Thus,” he says, “a man who is resting upon
faith, hope and love, and who keeps a firm hold upon these, does not need the
Scriptures except for the purpose of instructing others.” After all, if the end
is accomplished, the means is no longer necessary. This is reinforced in Christ
who tells us to relativize passing realities since,
…so far as He has condescended to
be our way, is willing to detain us, but wishes us rather to press on; and,
instead of weakly clinging to temporal things, even though these have been put
on and worn by Him for our salvation, to pass over them quickly, and to
struggle to attain unto Himself, who has freed our nature from the bondage of
temporal things, and has set it down at the right hand of His father.[8]
Tychonius’ goal of
understanding is simply that very understanding of Scriptures, both as a whole
and in specific passages. Thus he does not utilize doctrine, being somewhat
outside Scriptures, as Augustine does. Augustine says “Whatever there is in the
word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of
life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative.” In this text
one sees that Augustine identifies a figurative passage by its literal
contradiction to doctrine, and that he limits the figurative in Scriptures to
specific passages. His method is to first determine if a passage is figurative
or not, and then to apply the rules on sign-thing relationships that he has
created. Tychonius, on the other hand, thinks his rules are the keys that must
be known to draw a spiritual, eternal meaning out of all of Scripture – thus
seeing all of Scripture as potentially figurative.
Tychonius claims
that his rules are not just guidelines or mere examples of proper
interpretation, but the very keys to open the secrets of Scripture.[9]
So although Augustine says they are too specific to be applied to all passages,
and so fall short of truly laying
everything open, this is not what Tychonius would say about his rules. Rather,
as mortal tongues perpetually change and modify their languages, the Divine
language preserves the integrity of the whole of Scriptures because it is
regulated by these rules – which clearly must also be of Divine origin, since
it’s not as if God is applying his thoughts to rules that preceded Him. These
rules preserve the unity of the message of Scripture from the Old Testament
through to the New. Tychonius says, “For there are certain mystical rules which
hold the key to the secret recesses of the whole law, and render visible the
treasures of truth that are to many invisible.” This strong claim leads one to
think it must be the rules themselves which unify Scriptures, in order that the
whole law can indeed be known through them. If one think of these rules as the
same rules with which the Holy Spirit wrote the Scriptures in the first place, and
as those rules around which the whole of Scripture was built, then not only is
his claim legitimate, but the notion of Tychonius trying to obtain an
understanding of Scripture for its own sake holds good. If an understanding of
Scripture were the end, it would follow that the way of knowing how its signs
and things related would be shown from within. Unlike Augustine, who is
creating a standard method first to determine what should be figurative and
then to interpret them accordingly based on patterns he sees in sign-thing
relationships, Tychonius believes his rules arise organically out of the text itself.
Augustine speaks of obscurities being placed in the text by God to foster
charity, as he says one finds something worthier if it is harder to understand.
Tychonius, whose goal is only to understand the meaning of the Divine author,
would say that they are not obscurities any more than other passages if one
could only manage to see these seven pillars of Scriptures in them, which
constitute and direct all the truths of Scripture.
Though Augustine’s
purpose for reading Scripture is more profound, while Tychonius is approaching Scripture a bit like a
rhetorician, it is Tychonius who explains more thoroughly complex sign-thing
hybrids, those things that also signify something else. In light of charity as
the end of Scriptures, Augustine only provides a method of understanding
spiritual realities, which plays into charity, by signs. He omits, however, offering
a method of understanding the signs of the Old Testament as prophecies of Christ.
Augustine says
that a thing is that which is not used to signify anything else, like wood,
stone, and cattle, and he says they are not the things like the wood Moses
threw into the water, the stone Jacob slept on, or the ram Abraham sacrificed
in place of Jacob.[10] Later,
however, he undermines this with the example of ‘bos,’ ‘animal ox,’
‘evangelist,’ because in this example the animal ox doubles as both the thing
signified and the signifier of something else. It is a sign that is both
literal and figurative. But in an attempt to dispel confusion between carnal
and spiritual realities, he says, “Whatever there is in the word offered either
to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative,”[11]
and there is left to the reader the decision to read a passage as one of two
possibilities; literal or figurative.
It seems where the literal sense fails, the figurative sense must be employed.
This is derived
from his desire to come to understanding about general spiritual realities that
will lead one to charity. For this reason he does not present a method of
interpreting a sign of the Old Testament so that it prophesies something about
Christ and His Church, though it is clear he understands how one could do so.
For example, he says, “(Christ) healed on the Sabbath, and the people, clinging
to these signs as if they were realities, could not believe that one who
refused to observe them in the way the Jews did was God, or came to God.” Here
Christ is shown to be both he who rests by coming to God, and God himself, in who
man finds rest. Christ is both the thing signified by the prophecy of the Old
Testament and the signifier of a Divine reality, namely, his own divine nature.
The omission of a method to understand Christ and His Church as both sign and
signified is obvious when Augustine refuses to explore how the wood of Moses
prophesies the cross of Christ, or how the stone or the ram prophesy something
of Christ and His Church. He may be unsure of how to apply Christ as the core
of sign-thing relationships because he is unsure of how Christ can be the end of
Scriptures along with charity.
This is why
Augustine employs Tychonius heavily at the end of Book 3, which completes the
discussion of understanding Scriptures. Tychonius, who believes his rules can
be applied to any part of the Scripture to derive a figurative meaning, is
unhesitant to show an Old Testament sign as a prophesy of a New Testament thing
of Christ or His Church, for example when he portrays the carnal nation of
Israel as a prefigurement of the spiritual reality of the Church. While Augustine
determines if a passage is figurative based on its contradiction to doctrine,
and then applies his method, Tychonius is only concerned with using the rules
that Scripture is built upon to achieve an understanding of Scripture as a
whole. While Augustine sees the Old Testament relating to the New because they
both share in spiritual realities, like when he describes the signs in Genesis
as a means to an understanding of heaven[12]
(the goal in some way of charity itself[13]),
Tychonius would tend toward using signs of the Old Testament as a means to an
understanding of the realities of Christ in the New.
[1] 3.1.1 “The
man who fears God seeks diligently in Holy Scripture for a knowledge of His
will.”
[2] 1.8.8
[3] 2.1.1
[4] 3.29
[5] 1.35.39
[6] 1.36.40
[7] 3.27.38
[8] 1.34.38
[9] 3.30.42
[10] 1.2.2
[11] 3.10.14
[12] Book 1,
Chapters 1-4
[13] 1.4.4 - “in
order to reach that fatherland where our enjoyment is to commence”
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