Augustine’s Two Steps for Interpreting Complex Texts

 

Blake Adams

 Exegetical ambiguity occurs when a word or passage from Scripture can support more than one interpretation. Exegetical ambiguity can spur a deeper engagement with the text, but it can also frustrate or even cause despair. But it may relieve us to know the problem is nothing new. It is a constituent element of language as God has given it to us. And when it comes to problems of such a universal nature, the ancients can speak as our contemporaries. Though Augustine was a stranger to many modern exegetical methods, he was nonetheless one of the most formidable exegetes of the early period, and, as will be seen, his pastoral approach has ageless appeal. 

Who was Augustine of Hippo?

 Augustine was a North African bishop who died in the early fifth century. Excepting the apostle Paul, perhaps no theologian has left a greater mark on Western theology. Augustine was many things—a philosopher, a bishop, an apologist—but what he longed most to be was an exegete. For Augustine, exegesis was not, as we tend to think, merely a scholarly skillset. Exegesis was a way of life. Augustine said that an exegete lived in Scripture the way a deer lived in an expansive forest:

Not in vain have you [God] willed so many pages to be written … , not in vain do harts and hinds seek shelter in those woods, to hide and venture forth, roam and browse, lie down and ruminate. (Conf. XI.2, 3)

Being an exegete was like being a lover: it involved the whole of one’s life and identity. Understanding Scripture was an enterprise worthy of one’s entire existence, education, and energy. Augustine lamented that his ecclesial duties diverted him from enjoying the exegetical life to the fullest. Shortly after his (forced) ordination to the priesthood in 391, he asked his bishop for a temporary leave just to study the Scriptures to fortify himself for his new vocation (Ep. 21). Four years later, he was made bishop, and he complained that time for exegetical work became even more difficult to find (Conf. XI.2, 2; many a modern minister can relate). Despite the demands placed on him, Augustine spent every spare moment “exercising myself in the Holy Scriptures” (Ep. 213, I) and managed to produce an abundance of commentaries, homilies, and treatises that put his prodigious acumen on display. For Augustine, exegesis was neither a scholarly enterprise nor a mere resourcing for next Sunday’s sermon, but the reward of his labors. Augustine was well acquainted with the problem of scriptural ambiguity. The church in Hippo was diverse and intellectually active. Interpretations abounded, and not all of them were put forward by heretics or simpletons. In fact, it was the variety of valid interpretations that most interested Augustine, for these would appear the most difficult to resolve exclusively along the lines of Scripture and reason.1

The two stages of Augustine’s exegesis

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