How sacred Scripture is to be read by those who seek knowledge in it. Two things, O reader, I set before you — namely order and method — which, if you examine diligently, the path of reading will easily lie open to you. In the consideration of these I will neither leave everything to your own talent, nor do I promise that enough will be done for you by my diligence; but I will run through certain things, briefly touching upon them in a foretaste, so that you may find both some things set down by which you may be instructed, and some things omitted by which you may be exercised. The order of reading I recounted above to be fourfold: one in the disciplines, another in the books, another in the narration, and another in the exposition. How these are to be assigned in sacred Scripture, I have not yet shown. Concerning the order which is in the disciplines.
First, then, the divine reader ought to consider this order which is sought in the disciplines among history, allegory, and tropology — which of these precede the others in the order of reading. In this matter it is not useless to call to mind what is seen to happen in buildings, where first indeed the foundation is laid, then the structure is built up upon it, and last, when the work is finished, the house is clothed with a coat of colour laid over it. Concerning history. So assuredly it ought to be done in teaching, namely that you first learn history and the truth of the deeds done, committing diligently to memory — from the beginning down to the end — what was done, when it was done, where it was done, and by whom it was done.
For these four things especially are to be sought in history: person, deed, time, and place. Nor do I think that you can become perfectly subtle in allegory unless you have first been grounded in history. Do not despise these least things. Little by little he flows away who despises the least. If at first you had despised to learn the alphabet, you would now have no name at all among the grammarians. I know there are some who wish at once to philosophize. They say fables are to be left to the false apostles. Their knowledge is like the shape of an ass. Do not imitate such men. Steeped in small things, you will safely attempt great ones.
I dare to affirm to you that I never despised anything that pertained to learning, but often learned many things that to others seemed like a joke or a piece of nonsense. I remember that, while I was still a schoolboy, I laboured to know the names of all things subjected to the eyes or coming into use, judging freely that he cannot follow up the nature of things who still knows not their names. How often did I exact from myself a daily debt of my own sophisms, which for brevity's sake I had marked down in one or two words on a page — so that I held in memory the solutions and even the number of nearly all the sentences, questions, and objections which I had learned!
I often framed cases, and, having arranged opposing arguments against each other, I diligently distinguished what was the office of the rhetorician, what of the orator, what of the sophist. I set down counters in number, and painted the pavement with black charcoal, and, with the very example set before the eyes, plainly demonstrated what was the difference of the obtuse-angled, the right-angled, and the acute-angled triangle. Whether a square with equal sides, by multiplying its two sides into each other, would fill out the area, I learned, the measure running out on both sides. Often I kept watch as a nocturnal stargazer through the winter vigils. Often I used to draw a pipe-array of strings stretched out upon wood according to number, that I might both perceive the difference of tones with the ear and equally delight my mind with the sweetness of melody.
These things indeed were childish, but nevertheless not useless, nor does it now burden my stomach to know them. But I do not rehearse these to you in order to boast of my knowledge — which is either none or small — but to show you that he walks most fittingly who walks in order, and not, like some who, while they wish to make a great leap, fall into a precipice. As in the virtues, so in the sciences there are certain steps. But you say: 'I find many things in the histories which seem to be of no usefulness; why shall I be occupied with such things?' You speak well.
Indeed there are many things in the Scriptures which, considered in themselves, seem to have nothing worth seeking, yet which, if you compare them with others to which they cohere, and begin to weigh them in their whole, you will see to be alike necessary and fitting. Some things are to be known for their own sake; others, although in themselves they seem not worthy of our labour, yet because without them those things cannot be known with precision, ought by no means to be negligently passed over. Learn everything; you will see afterwards that nothing is superfluous. Cramped knowledge is not pleasant. But concerning the books which are useful for this reading, you ask what seems good to me. These I judge ought rather to be frequented: Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, the book of Judges, and Kings, and Chronicles;
of the New Testament, first the four Gospels, then the Acts of the Apostles. These eleven seem to me to pertain rather to history, excepting those whom we properly call historiographers. If nevertheless we use the meaning of this term more broadly, there is nothing unfitting in our saying that history is not only the narration of deeds done, but that first signification of any narration whatever which is expressed according to the proper meaning of the words. According to which acceptation I think that all the books of both Testaments, in the order in which they are enumerated above, pertain to this reading according to the literal sense.
And perhaps, were it not that it would seem childish, in this place I would insert some precepts concerning the manner of construing, since I know that sacred Scripture is more than all others concise in its text; yet from these I wish to refrain, lest by too much interposition I extend my discourse beyond measure. There are certain places in the divine page which cannot be read according to the letter, which one must discern with great discretion, lest either through negligence we pass over some, or, through importunate diligence, we violently wrench them to that for which they were not written. This, then, O reader, is what we set before you. This field of your labour, well furrowed by the ploughshare, will bring you back manifold fruit. All things were done in order: proceed in order.
Through the shadow one comes to the body: learn the figure and you will find the truth. Nor do I now say this so that you should labour to unfold the figures of the Old Testament first, and scrutinize its mystical sayings, before you approach to drink of the streams of the Gospel. But just as you see that every building lacking a foundation cannot be stable, so it is also in teaching. The foundation and principle of sacred teaching is history, from which, as honey from the honeycomb, the truth of allegory is pressed out. He who is about to build, therefore, let him first lay the foundation of history; then, through the typical signification, let him raise the fabric of the mind into the citadel of faith. At the very last, through the grace of morality, let him paint the building as with a most beautiful colour laid over it.
You have in history that by which you may marvel at the deeds of God; in allegory that by which you may believe His sacraments; in morality that by which you may imitate His perfection. Read, then, and learn that in the beginning God made heaven and earth. Read that in the beginning He planted a paradise of delight, in which He placed the man whom He had formed. The man sinning, He expelled, and cast him down into the toils of this world.
Read how from one man the whole offspring of the human race descended; how then the flood overwhelmed the sinners; how the divine clemency preserved the righteous Noah with his sons in the midst of the waters; how then Abraham received the seal of faith; afterward how Israel went down into Egypt; then how God led the children of Israel out of Egypt by the hand of Moses and Aaron through the Red Sea, fed them in the desert, gave them the law, settled them in the land of promise; how, when they often sinned, He delivered them into the hands of their enemies, and again, when they repented, set them free; how first by judges, then by kings, He ruled the people. He took David His servant from following the ewes great with young. He illumined Solomon with wisdom.
To the weeping Hezekiah He added fifteen years. Then He sent the transgressing people captive into Babylon by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. After seventy years He led them back by Cyrus. But at the last, when the age was now tottering, He sent His Son in the flesh, and promised eternal life to the penitent, sending the apostles into all the world. He foretold that He would come at the end of the ages to judgment, to render to each according to his works — namely, to sinners eternal fire, but to the righteous eternal life and a kingdom which shall have no end. See how, from the time the world began until the end of the ages, the mercies of the Lord do not fail. Concerning allegory.
After the reading of history, it remains to investigate the mysteries of the allegories, where I do not think there is need of my exhortation, since the thing itself appears sufficiently worthy by itself. Yet I wish you to know, O reader, that this study demands not dull and sluggish minds, but mature talents, which so hold to subtlety in investigating that they do not lose prudence in discerning. This food is solid, and unless it be chewed it cannot be swallowed. You ought, therefore, to use such restraint that, while you are subtle in seeking, you may not be found rash in presuming, recalling what the Psalmist says: 'He hath bent His bow, and made it ready; and in it He hath prepared the vessels of death.'
You remember, I suppose, that I said above that sacred Scripture is like a building, where first, the foundation being laid, the structure is raised on high — plainly like a building, for it too has a structure. Let it not, therefore, be irksome if we pursue this likeness a little more diligently. Look at the work of the mason. The foundation laid, he extends a line straight, lets down the plumb-line, and then sets the carefully polished stones in order. Then he seeks others and yet others, and if perhaps he finds some not answering to the first arrangement, he takes the file, cuts away the projections, smooths the rough, and reduces the shapeless to form; and so at last joins them to the rest set in order.
But if he finds any such as can neither be cut down nor fittingly fitted in, he does not take them up, lest perhaps, while he labours to break the flint, he break the file. Attend! I have set before you a thing contemptible to those who merely look on, but worthy of imitation to those who understand. The foundation is in the earth, and does not always have polished stones; the fabric is above the earth, and seeks an even structure. So the divine page contains many things according to the literal sense which both seem to be at odds with themselves and sometimes bring in something of absurdity or impossibility. But spiritual understanding admits no repugnance, in which there can be many diverse things, but no contrary ones.
That you also see the first course of stones, which are to be laid upon the foundation, set out along a stretched line—the very stones, that is, upon which the whole remaining work leans and is fitted together—is not without significance. For this is, as it were, a certain other foundation, and the base of the whole structure. This foundation both bears what is set above it and is itself borne by the prior foundation. Upon the first foundation all things rest, but they are not in every way fitted together. Upon this one the remaining parts both rest and are fitted. The first bears the structure and lies beneath the structure. This one bears the structure and is not only beneath the structure but within the structure. The foundation which is beneath the earth we have said figures history; the structure which is built up above intimates allegory.
Hence this very base of the structure ought also to pertain to allegory. The structure rises by many courses, and each has its own base. And many mysteries are contained in the divine page, each of which has its own first principles. Do you wish to know what these courses are? The first course is the mystery of the Trinity, for Scripture contains this too: that before every creature God was three and one. He made every creature out of nothing, namely the visible and the invisible: behold the second course. To the rational creature He gave free choice, and prepared grace, so that it might be able to merit eternal blessedness; then He punished those falling of their own will, and confirmed those who persevered, so that they could fall no more.
What the origin of sin is, what sin is, and what the punishment of sin is: behold the third course. What mysteries He first instituted under the natural law for the restoration of man: behold the fourth course. What were written under the Law: behold the fifth course. The mystery of the Incarnation of the Word: behold the sixth course. The mysteries of the New Testament: behold the seventh course; and finally those of the resurrection itself: behold the eighth course. Here is the whole of divinity; this is that spiritual structure which, by as many courses as it contains mysteries, is built up and raised on high. You wish, moreover, to recognize the bases themselves: the bases of the courses are the first principles of the mysteries. Behold, you have come to reading, about to build a spiritual edifice.
Now the foundations of history have been laid in you: it remains now for you to lay the bases of the structure itself. You stretch the cord, you set the level exactly, you arrange the squared blocks in order, and going around in a circle you mark out certain traces of the walls to come. The stretched line is the path of right faith; the very bases of the spiritual work are certain first principles of faith into which you are initiated. For the prudent reader ought indeed to take care that, before he goes on through the spacious volumes of books, he be so instructed in the several things that pertain especially to his purpose and to the profession of true faith, that whatever he afterward finds he may safely build upon them.
For scarcely, in so great a sea of books and amid the manifold windings of opinions—which by their number and their obscurity often confound the reader's mind—will he be able to gather any single thing, who has not first recognized, summarily in each (so to speak) class, some fixed first principle resting upon firm faith, to which all things may be referred. Do you wish me to teach you how these bases ought to be made? Look back at the things I enumerated to you a little earlier. There is the mystery of the Trinity. Many books have already been made about it, many opinions given, difficult to understand and intricate to resolve. It would be long and burdensome for you to pursue them all as yet, since you might perhaps find many things in which you would be more disturbed than edified.
Do not press on; in this way you will never come to the end. Learn first, briefly and clearly, what is to be held concerning faith in the Trinity, what you ought soundly to profess and truly to believe. But afterward, when you have begun to read books, and have found many things written obscurely, many openly, many ambiguously, those things which you find open, join to their base, if perchance they agree. Those which are ambiguous, so interpret that they do not clash. But those which are obscure, unlock if you can. But if you are not able to penetrate to their understanding, pass on, lest, while you try to presume what you are not equal to, you incur the danger of error. Do not despise them, but rather venerate them, because you have heard what is written: 'He made darkness His hiding-place.'
But if you also find something contrary to that which you have already learned must be held by most firm faith, it is nevertheless not expedient for you to change your opinion daily, unless you have first consulted those more learned than yourself, and above all have come to know what the universal faith—which can never be false—commands to be thought thereupon. Thus concerning the sacrament of the altar, thus concerning the sacrament of baptism, of confirmation, of marriage, and all the things which have been enumerated to you above, you ought to do. You see many who read the Scriptures, because they have not the foundation of truth, slipping into various errors, and changing their opinions almost as often as they read passages.
On the other hand you see others who, according to that recognition of truth by which they are inwardly made firm, have known how to bend any Scriptures whatever to fitting interpretations, and to judge what discords from sound faith or what agrees with it. In Ezekiel you read that the wheels follow the living creatures, not the living creatures the wheels: 'When the living creatures went,' he says, 'the wheels also went beside them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels also were lifted up together.' For the minds of the saints, the more they advance in virtues or in knowledge, so much the more do they behold the deep mysteries of the holy Scriptures to be profound, so that the things which seemed to the simple and to those still standing on earth to lie low, appear sublime to those who are raised up. For it follows:
'Wherever the spirit went, thither the spirit going; and the wheels likewise were lifted up following it. For the spirit of life was in the wheels.' You see that these wheels follow the living creatures, and follow the spirit. Again, elsewhere it is said: 'The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life,' because indeed it behooves the divine reader to be made solid by the truth of spiritual understanding, lest the points of the letters—which can sometimes be understood even perversely—incline him to any byways whatever. Why was that ancient people, which had received the law of life, reproved, except because it so followed the killing letter alone that it did not have the life-giving Spirit?
But I say these things not in order to give anyone an occasion of interpreting the Scriptures according to his own will, but to show that he who follows the letter alone cannot proceed long without error. We ought therefore both so to follow the letter that we do not set our own sense before the divine authors, and so not to follow it that we do not believe the whole judgment of truth to hang upon it. Not the merely literate, but the spiritual man judges all things. Therefore, that you may be able securely to judge the letter, you ought not to presume from your own sense, but first to be instructed and informed, and to lay, as it were, a certain base of unshaken truth upon which the whole structure may lean. And do not presume to be instructed by yourself, lest perchance, while you think to introduce yourself, you rather lead yourself astray.
This introduction must be sought from teachers and wise men, who, both by the authorities of the holy Fathers and by the testimonies of the Scriptures, can both make it and open it to you, as need requires; and when you have already been introduced, you must confirm by the testimonies of the Scriptures, by reading, the several things they have taught. So it seems to me. Whoever is pleased to imitate me in this, I gladly accept; whoever thinks it ought not to be done thus, let him do what pleases him; I will not contend. For I know that many do not keep this method in learning. But how some make progress, again I am not ignorant.
If you ask which books avail more for this reading, I think: the beginning of Genesis concerning the works of the six days, the three last books of Moses concerning the legal mysteries, Isaiah, the beginning and end of Ezekiel, Job, the Psalter, the Song of Songs, two Gospels especially, namely Matthew and John, the Epistles of Paul, the canonical Epistles, and the Apocalypse—but above all the Epistles of Paul, which even by their very number signify that they contain the perfection of both Testaments. Concerning tropology, that is, the moral sense. Concerning tropology I shall say nothing else at present than what has been said above, except that to it the signification of things rather than of words seems to pertain more.
For in it is the natural justice, from which the discipline of our morals, that is, positive justice, is born. By contemplating what God has made, we come to know what we ought to do. Every nature speaks of God, every nature teaches man, every nature gives birth to reason, and nothing in the universe is barren. Concerning the order of books. The same order of books is not to be kept in historical and in allegorical reading. History follows the order of time. To allegory pertains rather the order of cognition, because, as has been said above, doctrine ought always to take its beginning not from obscure things, but from open ones, and from those which are better known.
Hence it follows that the New Testament, in which truth is manifestly preached, should in this reading be set before the Old, where the same truth, shadowed forth in figures, is hiddenly foretold. The same truth is in both places, but there hidden, here manifest; there promised, here exhibited. You have heard, when it was read in the Apocalypse, that the book was sealed and no one could be found who could loose its seals, except the Lion of the tribe of Judah. The Law was sealed, the prophecies were sealed, because the times of the redemption to come were hiddenly foretold. Does not that book seem to you to have been sealed, which said: 'Behold, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call His name Emmanuel'? And another:
'You,' he says, 'Bethlehem Ephrathah, are little among the thousands of Judah: out of you shall come forth to me one who shall be ruler in Israel; and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity.' And the Psalmist: 'Shall not Zion say: A man, and a man is born in her, and the Most High himself founded her?' And again: 'The Lord's, the Lord's,' he says, 'are the issues of death.' And again: 'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand.' And a little after, concerning the same: 'With you is the principality in the day of your power; in the splendors of the saints, from the womb before the day-star I begot you.' And Daniel: 'I beheld in a vision of the night, and lo, with the clouds of heaven there came as it were a Son of man, and he came even to the Ancient of days, and he gave him power and honor, and a kingdom;'
'and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve him: his power is an everlasting power, which shall not be taken away.' Who, do you think, could understand these things before they were fulfilled? They were sealed, and no one could loose the seals, except the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Therefore the Son of God came, and put on our nature, was born of the Virgin, was crucified, buried, rose again, ascended into the heavens, and by fulfilling the things which had been promised, He opened the things which lay hidden. I read in the Gospel that the angel Gabriel is sent to the Virgin Mary, foretelling that she will bear: I recall the prophecy which says, 'Behold, a Virgin shall conceive.'
I read that, when Joseph was in Bethlehem with Mary his wife who was with child, the time of her bearing came, and she brought forth her firstborn son, whom the angel had foretold would reign on the throne of David his father: I recall the prophecy: 'Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are little among the thousands of Judah: out of you shall come forth to me one who shall be ruler in Israel.' I read again: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God': I recall the prophecy which says, 'His going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity.' I read: 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us': I recall the prophecy which says, 'You shall call His name Emmanuel,' that is, 'God with us.'
And lest perhaps, by pursuing each thing, I make it wearisome for you: unless you have first come to know the nativity of Christ, His preaching, His passion, resurrection and ascension, and the other things which He did in the flesh and through the flesh, you will not be able to penetrate the mysteries of the ancient figures. Concerning the order of narration. Concerning the order of narration, this above all must be considered in this place: that the text of the divine page does not always keep the natural nor the continuous order of speaking, because it often sets the later things before the earlier—as when, after it has enumerated certain things, the discourse suddenly runs back to higher matters, as though narrating things that follow;
Often, too, it connects things separated by a long interval, as though they immediately succeeded one another, so that no space of time seems to have separated those things which it does not divide by any interval of discourse. Concerning the order of exposition. Exposition contains three things: the letter, the sense, and the deeper meaning (sententia). In every narrative there is the letter, for the very words too are letters; but the sense and the deeper meaning are not found together in every narrative. Some have only the letter and the sense; some only the letter and the deeper meaning; some contain all these three together. But every narrative ought to have at least two.
That narrative has only the letter and the sense, where through the utterance itself something is so plainly signified that nothing else is left to be understood beneath it. But that one has only the letter and the deeper meaning, where from the mere pronouncement the hearer can conceive nothing unless an exposition be added. That one has both sense and deeper meaning, where something is plainly signified, and something else is left to be understood beneath it, which is opened by exposition. Concerning the letter. The letter is sometimes perfect, when, in order to signify what is said, it is necessary neither to add nor to take away anything besides what is set down, as, 'All wisdom is from the Lord God';
sometimes diminished, when something is left to be understood, as, 'The elder to the elect lady'; sometimes superfluous, when, whether for emphasis or because of a long interposition, the same thing is repeated or something unnecessary is added, as Paul at the end of the Epistle to the Romans says: 'To Him now,' and afterward, with many things interposed, infers: 'To whom be honor and glory.' Something here seems to be superfluous. I say superfluous, that is, not necessary to make the statement. Sometimes the letter is such that, unless it be resolved into another, it seems to signify nothing or to be incongruous, as is that:
'The Lord, in heaven His seat,' that is, 'The seat of the Lord is in heaven'; and 'the sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows,' that is, 'the teeth of the sons of men'; and 'Man, like grass are his days,' that is, 'the days of man.' Namely, a nominative of the noun and a genitive of the pronoun, set in place of a single genitive of the noun, and many other things similarly. To the letter pertain construction and continuation. Concerning the sense. Of sense, one kind is congruous, another incongruous. Of the incongruous, one is incredible, another impossible, another absurd, another false. You find many things of this kind in the Scriptures, as that: 'They have devoured Jacob.' And that: 'Under whom they are bowed down who bear up the world.' And that: 'My soul has chosen hanging,' and many others.