Augustine’s On Christian Teaching, Scripture and the Classical Education

AbstractAugustine had a high view of scripture, seeing it as the foundation of life for the individual and for society, and as the origin of morality, philosophy, eloquence, rhetoric and teaching. As such, Augustine urged his followers to undertake study of the scripture for understanding.

“There are two things on which all interpretation of scripture depends: the process of discovering what we need to learn, and the process of presenting what we have learnt” – Augustine, On Christian Teaching, preface.

On Christian Teaching is a four volume work exploring the substance of Christian belief, the methods of understanding Scripture, and then finally an examination of the methods of proclaiming such beliefs.

Augustine was influenced by notions of education and proclamation of his time – there are many philosophical factors underpinning his doctrine, educational philosophy and rhetorical approach. While studies of On Christian Doctrine in the light of Augustine’s battles with heretics, his Platonic background, or his time in the Manichean sect would doubtless prove beneficial, this work will examine the role the classical Liberal Arts education, and Cicero’s rhetorical approach shaped the work.

This exploration demonstrates that there is much the modern church, and modern teacher of the scriptures, can learn from this fourth century churchman.

“He who reads to an audience pronounces aloud the words he sees before him: he who teaches reading, does it that others may be able to read for themselves. Just so, the man who explains to an audience the passages of Scripture he understands is like one who reads aloud the words before him. On the other hand, the man who lays down rules for interpretation is like one who teaches reading, that is, shows others how to read for themselves.”

“For what a person learns independently of scripture is condemned there if it is harmful, but found there if it is useful. And when one has found there all the useful knowledge that can be learnt anywhere else, one will also find there, in much greater abundance, things which are learnt nowhere else at all, but solely in the remarkable humility of the scriptures.” – Augustine, On Christian Teaching

IntroductionAugustine of Hippo was a master of destroying arguments and lofty

opinions against God, and taking them captive to Christ (2 Corinthians

10:5), this philosophy underpinned much of his work. In On Christian

Teaching he cites a variety of thinkers, Christian and secular,

demonstrating a conversance with their work,1 and encourages a model of

interaction with such work predicated on plundering intellectual gold

wherever it can be found, and realigning it with the work of the gospel.

Augustine was passionate about the Bible, seeing life under God as the

chief end of man, and mankind as God’s means of achieving this purpose.

All things on earth were useful only insofar as they furthered this end, and

thus Christians were called to be conversant with the people around them,

and to be in a position to discern the gold to be plundered from secular

ideas and philosophies.

Augustine, like Origen before him,2 urged believers to study the liberal arts

in order to unlock the mysteries of scripture. In this manner Augustine

followed not just Origen, but Cicero, one of the fathers of the rhetoric, who

was a profound intellectual, and spiritual, influence on Augustine.3 His

methodology for the reading and teaching of scripture borrowed heavily

from Cicero’s educational framework, and laid the groundwork for

Christian and secular education in the sciences, arts and humanities for

future generations.4

1 At a quick glance his work interacts with Cicero, Varro, Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Pythagoras, Cyprian the martyr, Lactantius, Victorinus of Optatus, Hilary, Eusebius, Jerome, and his friend Ambrose.2 Origen, Letter to Gregory, New Advent Church Fathers, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0415.htm, “But I am anxious that you should devote all the strength of your natural good parts to Christianity for your end; and in order to this, I wish to ask you to extract from the philosophy of the Greeks what may serve as a course of study or a preparation for Christianity, and from geometry and astronomy what will serve to explain the sacred Scriptures, in order that all that the sons of the philosophers are wont to say about geometry and music, grammar, rhetoric, and astronomy, as fellow-helpers to philosophy, we may say about philosophy itself, in relation to Christianity.”3 Augustine, Confessions, Book III, Chapter Four, New Advent Church Fathers, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/110103.htm, Augustine attributes his eagerness to be an eminent rhetor, and his turning to the God of the Bible to reading Cicero’s Hortensius.4 D.L Jeffery, ‘The Pearl of Great Wisdom: The Deep and Abiding Biblical Roots of Western Liberal Education,’ Touchstone, October 2007, 25-30, 27

Augustine flipped Cicero’s paradigm – where his hero desired eloquence

above wisdom, the churchman pursued wisdom and saw eloquence as a

tool in the educator’s armoury, rather than the end goal of education.5

Many passages within Augustine’s work are products of his time and

personal experience, including his unique exegetical and allegorical

approach to certain passages of scripture, his own statement about

dealing with the works of others, holds true for interactions with his work:

“A person who is a good and true Christian should realise that truth

belongs to his Lord, wherever it is found, gathering and acknowledging it

even in pagan literature, but rejecting superstitious vanities.”6

While his work contains certain “superstitious vanities” that should be

rejected, there is much truth to be explored and adopted.

This essay will explore Augustine’s framework for reading and teaching

the scriptures, making observations about how his approach to reading

the scripture is influenced by his classical education, and his approach to

teaching by his training as an orator. While there is much to be gleaned by

interpreting Augustine through his pre-Christian philosophical and

theological convictions (namely his Platonism and Manicheaism), these

observations are ancillary to this essay, and will only be mentioned as

they relate to the topic.

We will examine, in a broad treatment, his approach to the study and

teaching of scripture, concluding that while some elements are

chronosyncratic much of this treatise stands the test of time and provides

succor for those seeking to live lives according to scripture, and to teach it

to others.

How to Read The Bible

Augustine believed that scripture should be read for understanding, and

that such understanding would always encourage believers towards acts

5 ibid6 Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Book Two, 27

of charity and away from acts of crime and vice.7 His hermeneutical key

used Jesus’ statement that all the Law and the Prophets hung on the

commandment to love God, and your neighbour as yourself, (Matthew

22:38-40), this was his key for unlocking the whole Scriptures, any

interpretation that failed to meet his criteria was incorrect and should be

discarded.8 If a passage was unable to produce such a meaning then it

was to be interpreted as figurative in a way that did.9

He suggested readers start by familiarising themselves with the text,

reading for knowledge and memory, then move to examining the plain

doctrinal truths, before moving to interpret the less clear passages.10

How to Read the Bible - A Hermeneutic of Love

For Augustine, Love truly conquered all, at least all alternative readings of

scripture, his philosophical commitments and intellectual background

meshed with his underlying Biblical hermeneutic and exegetical model to

produce an approach to more difficult passages of scripture that is akin to

a contortionist performing acrobatics.

Augustine’s interpretive principles are essentially sound, coupled with an

exegetical commitment to let clear passages of scripture guide

interpretation of more difficult passages, and a desire not to interpret

figurative passages as literal. But his views on what passages were to be

taken figuratively, and what to take literally, were broader than necessary.

Augustine’s approach to the issue of loving your neighbour, by first loving

yourself, adopts a Platonic view of identity, and an Aristotelian approach

7 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book III, Chapter 108 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought. 9 Augstine, On Christian Teaching, Chapter 1010 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, Chapter 9, Book III, Chapters 26-28

to the question of self-love.11 He suggests that in order to love others one

must first love oneself, and that man needs no command to do so.12

Augustine’s hermeneutic of love allowed interpretive flexibility, or license,

for those seeking to understand the Scriptures. Wrong interpretations with

loving conclusions were fair game, and errors of this nature, were simply a

detour, 13 though worthy of correction, in case the incorrect thinker might

“get into a habit of going astray,” 14 such errors were not pernicious or

deceptive.15

How to Read the Bible – An Exegetical Model

Augustine struggled to intellectually reconcile the God of the Old

Testament with his convictions about the nature of God,16 and part of his

conversion involved a commitment to interpret those passages within his

hermeneutic of love, and an allegorical approach that made much of his

exegesis, particularly of the Old Testament, unreliable.17 He advocated the

perspicuity of Scripture, suggesting that even the most difficult passages

could be understood using a simple array of tools. He relied on clear

doctrine from unambiguous passages when it came to interpreting

ambiguous doctrine in less clear passages.18

11 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book IX, Chapter 8, from Sacred Texts, http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/ari/nico/nico103.htm, “Therefore the good man should be a lover of self (for he will both himself profit by doing noble acts, and will benefit his fellows), but the wicked man should not; for he will hurt both himself and his neighbours,” Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book I, Chapter 5, “Man, therefore, ought to be taught the due measure of loving, that is, in what measure he may love himself so as to be of service to himself.”12 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book I, Chapter 513 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book I, Chapter 36, “Whoever takes another meaning out of Scripture than the writer intended, goes astray, but not through any falsehood in Scripture. Nevertheless, as I was going to say, if his mistaken interpretation tends to build up love, which is the end of the commandment, he goes astray in much the same way as a man who by mistake quits the high road, but yet reaches through the fields the same place to which the road leads. He is to be corrected, however, and to be shown how much better it is not to quit the straight road, lest, if he get into a habit of going astray, he may sometimes take cross roads, or even go in the wrong direction altogether.”14 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book I, Chapter 3615 ibid, “If, on the other hand, 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 place, his error is not pernicious, and he is wholly clear from the charge of deception.”16 Augustine, Confessions, 5.14.24, Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book III, Chapters 11-1217 Augustine, Confessions, 5.14.25, describes his movement from the Manicheans “overly literal” interpretation of the Old Testament to Amrbose’s allegorical approach, and character, and approach he continues to advocate in On Christian Teaching, e.g Book III, Chapters 11-1218 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, Chapter 9,

There were certain strengths to the exegetical model laid out in On

Christian Teaching. After explaining the difference between “signs” and

“things,”19 Augustine turns to genre recognition as vital to understanding

the scriptures, with all passages either to be understood as literal or

figurative,20 some signs were included in order to evoke figurative

interpretations,21 but passages were to be considered literal unless they

could not be brought into line with his hermeneutic.22 If this was the case

the passage was to be treated as figurative, and thus became fertile

ground for allegory.

How to Read the Bible – An Exegetical Toolkit

To better enable one to understand the more difficult passages in

scripture he encouraged the study of Greek and Hebrew,23 familiarity with

conventions of language,24 punctuation and grammar,25 but only so far as

they enabled the better understanding of scripture, and of other people.

Augustine calls for readers and teachers to elucidate potential hidden

meanings in scripture by understanding those terms and phrases (or

signs) the writers of the Bible employ.26 He bemoans the clunky translation

of idioms into Latin,27 and advocates developing a familiarity with common

idioms by repetition, or seeking out a speaker of that tongue.28 Other

signs, and biblical analogies can be understood through the study of

plants, minerals, sport, the mechanical arts, and geography.29 Augustine

essentially advocates a Roman “Liberal Arts” education,30 the kind he

19 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, Chapters 1-420 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, Chapters 6, 16, Book III, Chapter 1021 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, Chapter 1022 ibid23 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, Chapters 11, 1324 Particularly the original languages in order to not attempt clunky translations of idioms, Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, Chapter 13, 1425 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book III, Chapters 2-326 T. Williams, ‘Biblical Interpretation,’ The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 68-70 contains an overview of Augustine’s approach to becoming an intelligent reader of Scriptures. 27 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, Chapter 13, 1428 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, Chapter 14 – this notion of repeating idioms in order to own them is similar to Cicero’s practice of translating and rewriting great works of Greek oratory in order to become familiar with their turn of phrase, Cicero, De Oratore, I. xxxiv. 15529 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, Chapter 3130 Augustine, Retractions, I.6 Augustine suggests the disciplines of use for Christian interpretation included grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, geometry, and philosophy

himself had received,31 and the kind he represents as a desirable trait in

the possibly auto-biographically fictive person of Trygetius in the

Cassiciacum Dialogues.32 While some argue that Augustine grew

disillusioned on the value of such an education as he grew older,33 Topping

(2010) suggests Augustine maintained a middle of the road, “guardedly

optimistic,” view of such an education throughout his life.34

Knowledge gleaned in study in any of these areas is pursued only to

enhance the understanding of God’s word. On the question of music,

which some suspected were daughters of Jupiter and Mercury, Augustine

highlights the interpretive benefits of familiarity with music, interacting

with the work of Varro:

“Many passages are also made inaccessible and opaque by an ignorance

of music. It has been elegantly demonstrated that there are some

figurative meanings of things based on the difference between the psaltry

and the lyre…

“But whether Varro’s story is true or not, we should not avoid music

because of the associated pagan superstitions if there is a possibility of

gleaning of it something of value for understanding Holy Scripture.”35

On the question of original languages, Augustine may not have entirely

practiced what he preached, while deeply and vehemently committed to

31 J.J O’Donnell, ‘De Doctrina Christiana,’ Augustine Through The Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. A. Fitzgerald & J.C Cavadini, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 280, Augustine, ‘Letter 104: Augustine to Nectarius,’ in Augustine: Political Writings, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, ed. E.M Atkins, & R.J Dodaro, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 12-13, In this letter to Nectarius, Augustine claims to have read the classical literature of Nectarius (identified as Plato’s Republic in an earlier missive), from his earliest youth, bemoaning that he was a late starter to applying his mind to Christian literature. His conversance with Roman literature allows him to make the case for Christianity to Nectarius, a non-Christian.32 J. McWilliam, ‘Cassiciacum Dialogues’ Augustine Through The Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. A. Fitzgerald & J.C Cavadini, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 140-14233 S. MacCormack, ‘Classical Influences on Augustine,’ Augustine Through The Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. A. Fitzgerald & J.C Cavadini, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 207, cites Augustine’s Retractions 1.3.2, “many holy persons are deeply ignorant of these disciplines, and many who know them are not holy.”34 Some scholars have suggested that Augustine was initially a defender of such an education but was later “defensive,” perceiving education as a threat to Christian belief. Topping advocates a third view – that Augustine was always cautiously optimistic regarding such an education, R.N.S Topping, ‘Augustine on Liberal Education: Defender and Defensive,’ The Heythrop Journal, LI (2010), pp. 377–387 35 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, Chapters 17-18

the Bible he engaged in a long running debate with Jerome on efforts to

translate the Hebrew Old Testament,36 rather than the Septuagint, a

translation Augustine held in high esteem on account of its divine

provenance.37 After a series of heated missives between the two

patriarchs,38 where in one case Augustine recounted the plight of a fellow

bishop narrowly avoided a riot, and expulsion from his parish, over a new

translation of a single word in Jonah,39 Augustine eventually welcomed the

translation from Hebrew,40 but was more excited by Jerome’s attempts to

translate the Greek text.41 Augustine argued that the Septuagint had been

widely distributed, used by the apostles,42 and alternate translations would

undermine confidence in the word for those aware of such debates.43

36 Augustine, ‘Letter to Jerome,’ Letters of St Augustine, Letter 28, 394 AD, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102028.htm, “For my own part, I cannot sufficiently express my wonder that anything should at this date be found in the Hebrew manuscripts which escaped so many translators perfectly acquainted with the language. I say nothing of the LXX., regarding whose harmony in mind and spirit, surpassing that which is found in even one man, I dare not in any way pronounce a decided opinion, except that in my judgment, beyond question, very high authority must in this work of translation be conceded to them...” Jerome, ‘Letter to Augustine,’ Letters of St. Augustine, Letter 75, 404 AD, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102075.htm, “…in my attempt to translate into Latin, for the benefit of those who speak the same language with myself, the corrected Greek version of the Scriptures, I have laboured not to supersede what has been long esteemed, but only to bring prominently forward those things which have been either omitted or tampered with by the Jews, in order that Latin readers might know what is found in the original Hebrew.”37 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, Chapter 15, Augustine, City of God, XVIII chap 43, Augustine, Letter to Jerome, Letters of St Augustine, Letter 71, Chapter 2, 403 AD, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102071.htm,38 Augustine, Letter to Jerome, Letters of St Augustine, Letter 71, Chapter 2 “For my part, I would much rather that you would furnish us with a translation of the Greek version of the canonical Scriptures known as the work of the Seventy translators.”39 Augustine, Letter to Jerome, Letters of St Augustine, Letter 71, Chapter 3, tells a story of a bishop who introduced Jerome’s new version of Jonah to the church where they discovered an unfamiliar word, a translation that almost sparked a riot, “thereupon arose such a tumult in the congregation, especially among the Greeks, correcting what had been read, and denouncing the translation as false, that the bishop was compelled to ask the testimony of the Jewish residents… suggesting this bishop had to correct Jerome “…as he desired not to be left without a congregation—a calamity which he narrowly escaped,” Augustine highlighted the dangers of working with unpopular languages. Jerome responds, Jerome to Augustus, Letter 75. Chapter 7, Jerome enquires what this tumultuous word might have been, observing that Augustine failed to tell him “thus taking away the possibility of my saying anything in my own vindication, lest my reply should be fatal to your objection,” further speculating that the issue revolves around the translation of a plant genus (gourd or ivy).40 Augustine, Letter to Jerome, Letters of St Augustine, Letter 82, Chapter 5.34, 405 AD, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102082.htm41 Augustine, Letter to Jerome, Letters of St Augustine, Letter 82, Chapter 5.3542 Augustine, Letter to Jerome, Letters of St Augustine, Letter 71, Chapter 4 43 Augustine, Letter to Jerome, Letters of St Augustine, Letter 71, Chapter 2, “For if your translation begins to be more generally read in many churches, it will be a grievous thing that, in the reading of Scripture, differences must arise between the Latin Churches and the Greek Churches, especially seeing that the discrepancy is easily condemned in a Latin version by the production of the original in Greek, which is a language very widely known; whereas, if any one has been disturbed by the occurrence of something to which he was not accustomed in the translation taken from the Hebrew, and alleges that the new translation is wrong, it will be found difficult, if not impossible, to get at the Hebrew

Some scholars have suggested Augustine’s own language skills fell short

of the standard he advocates in On Christian Teaching,44 a passage from

Confessions seems to imply that he found Hebrew unintelligible,45 though

he regularly undertakes Hebrew word studies in his exegesis.46

Augustine’s grasp of Hebrew in these studies is rudimentary at best, and

his Greek became more fluent with age. He may not have been as capable

in either as Jerome, but he was certainly able to wield them in order to

develop the sort of interpretive conclusions that would make Nicholas

Cage’s character in National Treasure proud. That is to say the basis for

such conclusions was often shaky,47 and the conclusions themselves

subject to a vivid imagination, and an exegetical commitment to fanciful

allegory.48

How to Read the Bible – Plundering the gold of others

Prior to his conversion, Augustine was deeply committed to Neo-Platonism,

and an adherent of Manicheaism, a Persian Gnostic religion.49 His

documents by which the version to which exception is taken may be defended.”44 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, Chapter 11, Many have suggested Augustine had “no Hebrew, and little Greek,” for example T. Williams, ‘Biblical Interpretation,’ The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 70, at footnote 8.45 Augustine, Confessions, Book XI, Chapter Three, New Advent Church Fathers Collection, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/110111.htm, Augustine asks to speak to Moses regarding the creation of the world and says “And should he speak in the Hebrew tongue, in vain would it beat on my senses, nor would anything touch my mind; but if in Latin, I should know what he said. But whence should I know whether he said what was true?”- This seems possible to interpret as a rhetorical emphasis on Moses’ origins in a foreign time and place, and the witness Augustine expected he could still have to his soul (because the Spirit would confirm what was true: “But whence should I know whether he said what was true? But if I knew this even, should I know it from him? Verily within me, within in the chamber of my thought, Truth, neither Hebrew, nor Greek, nor Latin, nor barbarian, without the organs of voice and tongue, without the sound of syllables, would say, "He speaks the truth," and I, immediately assured of it, confidently would say unto that man of Yours, "You speak the truth."46 Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 133, from New Advent Church Fathers Collection, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801133.htm contains a study of the word “hermon,” a light set on a high place, his word study says: “The word is Hebrew, and we learn its meaning from them who know that language,” it leads to an allegorical link to Christ, his Exposition on Psalm 132 from New Advent Church Fathers Collection, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801132.htm, contains a similar study of the word Ephrata, with reference to the Latin equivalent, Speculum, from the “translators of Hebrew words in the Scriptures” who have “handed down to us that we might understand them” – this word study also leads to an allegorical interpretation of the Psalm.47 Augustine was, by his own admission in his cited works on Psalms, relying on the testimony of others when it came to his use of Hebrew rather than seeking out Hebrew instruction from the Jewish community. 48 A commitment grounded in his conversion under Ambrose as recorded in Confessions – “This was especially clear after I had heard one or two parts of the Old Testament explained allegorically--whereas before this, when I had interpreted them literally, they had "killed" me spiritually.” Augustine, Confessions, 5.14.2449 Augustine, Confessions, 5.14.25

experience with, and conversion from, these beliefs profoundly shaped his

Christianity, his worldview, and his approach to understanding the Bible.

But it is perhaps his admiration of Cicero, his classical education, and his

background as an orator, that most profoundly shaped his ministry and

philosophy.

His conversion to Christianity was fundamentally rational, and the result of

a long process of thought, and powerful rhetoric. He describes the process

in Confessions,50 but the value he placed on his study of alternate

philosophies is found in his approach to secular knowledge in On Christian

Teaching.

His engaging with secular thoughts followed an established practice,

traced through the works of the apostles, early church fathers like

Clement, Origen, and his contemporary, Jerome.51 While others were

content to interact with the ideas of foreign teaching, Augustine follows

Origen, whose Letter to Gregory urges his Christian reader to read widely,

looking for truth wherever possible, with a view to incorporating it into

sound Christian belief.52

…in order that, by spoiling the Egyptians, they might have material for the

preparation of the things which pertained to the service of God. – Origen,

Letter to Gregory

“These treasures… must be removed by Christians as they separate

themselves in spirit from the wretched company of pagans, and applied to

50 Augustine, Confessions, 5.14.25, from New Advent Church Fathers Collection, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/110105.htm - Still, concerning the body of this world, nature as a whole - now that I was able to consider and compare such things more and more - I now decided that the majority of the philosophers held the more probable views. So, in what I thought was the method of the Academics - doubting everything and fluctuating between all the options - I came to the conclusion that the Manicheans were to be abandoned. For I judged, even in that period of doubt, that I could not remain in a sect to which I preferred some of the philosophers. But I refused to commit the cure of my fainting soul to the philosophers, because they were without the saving name of Christ. I resolved, therefore, to become a catechumen in the Catholic Church - which my parents had so much urged upon me - until something certain shone forth by which I might guide my course.” 51 D.L Jeffery, ‘The Pearl of Great Wisdom: The Deep and Abiding Biblical Roots of Western Liberal Education,’ Touchstone, October 2007, 25-30, 2752 Origen, Letter to Gregory, New Advent Church Fathers, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0415.htm

their true function, that of preaching the gospel.” – Augustine, On

Christian Teaching

Jerome urges a similar approach as he observes the Biblical writers

engaging with contemporary poets and philosophers, though he closes

with a slightly less elegant analogy, David beheading Goliath with his own

sword, to describe the Apostle Paul’s approach.53

Augustine recognised truth in many systems of thought, expecting a

harmonious relationship between special and general revelation,54 he

suggested all pagan learning either concerned human institutions

(philosophy) or described divinely instituted order (natural law),55 and that

truth therein belonged to God and should be used for his purposes. He has

a particular soft spot for Platonism, suggesting a large correlation with

Christianity.56 He attempts to explain this overlap, speculating that during

the philosopher’s pilgrimage to Egypt, he must have discovered Jewish

monotheism, speculation he later adapted in City of God.57 Regardless of

the source of Plato’s divine inspiration, Augustine was happy to adopt a

redemptive approach to secular thought, bringing such truth as could be

found elsewhere under the banner of Christianity in order to better

understand and teach the gospel.

Knowledge, Wisdom and Eloquence: The Nexus of “faith seeking

understanding,” and teaching, and Augustine’s contribution to

education53 D.L Jeffery, ‘The Pearl of Great Wisdom: The Deep and Abiding Biblical Roots of Western Liberal Education,’ Touchstone, October 2007, 25-30, 26, Jerome, Letter to Magnus, an Orator of Rome, Letters of St Jerome, Letter 70, New Advent Church Fathers, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001070.htm 54 D.L Jeffery, ‘The Pearl of Great Wisdom: The Deep and Abiding Biblical Roots of Western Liberal Education,’ Touchstone, October 2007, 25-30, 2855 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, “There are two kinds of learning pursued even in pagan society. One consists of things which have been instituted by humans, the other consists of things already developed or divinely instituted, which have been observed by them.”56 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, “Any statements by those which are called philosophers, especially the Platonists, which happen to be true and consistent with our own faith should not cause alarm, but be claimed for our own use, as it were from owners who have no right to them. Like the treasures of the Ancient Egyptians.”57 Augustine, City of God, Book VIII, Chapter 11, from New Advents Church Fathers Collection, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120108.htm, by the time he wrote City of God Augustine has recalculated the dates of Plato’s pilgrimage, ruling out a coincidence with the translators of the Septuagint under Ptolmey, but suggesting Plato’s insatiable curiosity must have brought him in contact with Jewish ideas citing immutability as a key doctrinal point of Judaism that Plato must only have found there.

Wisdom and eloquence, or eloquence and wisdom? This was a defining

question for classical philosophers and orators.58

Plato, in Phaedrus, had suggested rhetoric should merge with philosophy

and serve as background for a dialectic approach to wisdom,59 he

distrusted written communication and preferred oratory as a means for

developing wisdom,60 Plato also advocated understanding the “soul” of

your audience in order to speak their language of persuasion,61 in the right

language for the occasion,62 a concept Augustine promotes for those

looking to teach the church,63 though he was much more favourably

disposed to the written word.64

Aristotle believed that dialectic and rhetoric were two sides of the same

coin, useful for instruction65 and that there were three types of persuasion:

logos, pathos and ethos,66 and three varieties of rhetoric: political,

forensic, and ceremonial.67 The end of man, and thus the end of rhetoric,

was happiness:

“Whatever creates or increases happiness or some part of happiness, we

ought to do; whatever destroys or hampers happiness, or gives rise to its

opposite, we ought not to do.”68

58 C.E Quillen, ‘Reading Augustine, Augustine on Reading,’ Rereading the Renaissance: Petrarch, Augustine, and the Language of Humanism, (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1998), 23-2459 Plato, Phaedrus, 276e, from Perseus, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0174%3Atext%3DPhaedrus%3Apage%3D275, Plato suggests dialetic discourse that “plants and sows” an intelligent word in a fitting soul is “far nobler” than writing one’s thoughts for posterity.60 Plato, Phaedrus, 275a-e61 Plato, Phaedrus, 271.d 62 Plato, Phaedrus, 272.a, 27763 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book IV, Chapters 14, 22-2364 P.R.L Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, (Berkeley, California University Press, 1967), 300-306 documents the care Augustine took when composing his Magnum Opus, City of God, R.N.S Topping, ‘Augustine on Liberal Education,’ notes we have more than five million extant words written by Augustine.65 Aristotle, Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Book 1, Chapter 1, from http://www2.iastate.edu/~honeyl/Rhetoric/rhet1-1.html 66 Aristotle, Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Book 1, Chapter 2, http://www2.iastate.edu/~honeyl/Rhetoric/rhet1-2.html – or reason, emotional manipulation, and personal character or credibility.67 Aristotle, Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Book 1, Chapter 3, http://www2.iastate.edu/~honeyl/Rhetoric/rhet1-3.html 68 Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book 1, Chapter 5

Augustine had no trouble reconciling happiness as man’s chief end, or the

supreme good, with declaring God also our supreme good. 69 They were

one and the same.70

Cicero argued that rhetoric and reason, or wisdom and eloquence, were

together the basis for civilised society.71 He believed that oratory

depended on knowledge, and conversely knowledge depended on oratory, 72 for without it nobody would learn, his work De Oratore bears a certain

resemblance to Augustine’s teaching in On Christian Teaching, in its

dealings with virtue and vice,73 and the call for orators to be familiar with a

wide range of disciplines. The notion of wisdom without eloquence was a

foreign one. Cicero argued that a “mute and voiceless wisdom” had no

hope of persuading or changing lives.74 While modern scholarship has

been dismissive of Cicero’s place in the canon of philosophers and orators

– he had a profound impact on Augustine’s life and teaching.75 Foley

(1999) suggests many of Augustine’s written works were a tribute or

response to Cicero’s writings.76 In this manner Augustine’s On Christian

Teaching takes its place amongst the volumes of works that pioneered a

classical “liberal arts” education.77

69 J.L O’Donovan, ‘The Political Thought of the City of God,’ Bonds of Imperfection: Christian Politics, Past and Present, O. O’Donovan and J.L O’Donovan, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 49-50, 54, suggests Augustine shared a classical understanding that a “thing’s” end is its perfection, and for humanity the final good is eternal life, which is the only true source of happiness, he suggests it is possible to enjoy a qualified happiness now “It is the hope of the eternal that makes us relatively happy, for only in hope can we enjoy the true good of the mind, which is to contemplate the eternal.”70 B. Kent, ‘Augustine’s Ethics,’ The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 21671 J. May, ‘Cicero's Ideal Orator and the Saint Olaf Graduate: The Tradition Continues?’ Mellby Lecture, Founders Day, 1996, St. Olaf College, http://www.stolaf.edu/offices/doc/PublicRemarks/MellbyLecture1996.html 72 Cicero, De Oratore, I. ii. 5-8, http://www.archive.org/stream/cicerodeoratore01ciceuoft/cicerodeoratore01ciceuoft_djvu.txt Cicero held that oratory depended on the trained skill of highly educated people, rather than natural talent.73 Cicero, De Oratore, II. I. xxxv, 34974 Cicero, De Inventione, Book I, Chapter 2, http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_invention/Book_1?match=la “And it certainly seems to me that no wisdom which was silent and destitute of skill in speaking could have had such power as to turn men on a sudden from their previous customs, and to lead them to the adoption of a different system of life… how could men possibly have been induced to learn to cultivate integrity and to maintain justice, and to be accustomed willingly to obey others, and to think it right not only to encounter toil for the sake of the general advantage, but even to run the risk of losing their lives, if men had not been able to persuade them by eloquence of the truth of those principles which they had discovered by philosophy?”75 M.P Foley, ‘Cicero, Augustine, and the Philosophical Roots of the Cassiciacum Dialogues,’ Revue des Études Augustiniennes, 45 (1999), 51-77, 51-5376 M.P Foley, op. cit. 6277 C.E Quillen, ‘Reading Augustine, Augustine on Reading,’ 23-25

While some have suggested describing Augustine as a philosopher in the

modern age is a misnomer as he essentially ceased to be a philosopher

when he was converted,78 and it is true that his conversion led him to

distance himself from certain aspects of his previous philosophical

beliefs.79 Augustine’s model for learning and understanding the scriptures

through broad knowledge of other disciplines borrows heavily on

philosophy, and the classical education championed by Plato’s Republic,80

Varro’s encyclopedic Libri Novem Disciplinarum,81 and Cicero’s De

Oratore,82 the end goal of such an education was oratory,83 this was the

final step in a classical education and the ticket to social mobility.84 Jeffery

(2007) suggests Augustine appropriated Cicero’s educational philosophy

“to a biblical order of reasoning about language and truth.”85

Some scholars suggest Augustine’s view of the Liberal Arts changed from

a romantic notion of a liberal arts Christian curriculum designed to

introduce students to God,86 to a position based solely on understanding

78 J. Rist, ‘Faith and Reason,’ The Cambridge Guide to Augustine, ed. E. Stump and N. Kretzmann, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 2779 A.W Matthews, The Development of St. Augustine from Neoplatonism to Christianity. 386-391 A.D (Washington: University Press of America, 1980), 261. Augustine was happy to relinquish elements of his platonic, and neo-platonic, way of viewing the world in order to conform to Christian thinking and beliefs.80 Plato, Republic, Book VII, 521c-531c, from Perseus http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D7%3Asection%3D522d, Plato outlines five disciplines – geometry, astronomy, music, arithmetic, and dialetic, see R.N.S Topping, ‘Augustine on Liberal Education: Defender and Defensive,’ The Heythrop Journal, LI (2010), 379, regarding the desirability of a liberal arts education. 81 A.F West, ‘The Seven Liberal Arts,’ Alcuin and the Rise of Christian Schools, (New York: Scribner, 1892, reprinted by BiblioLife Reproductions, 2009), 6-7, identifies Varro as the Roman father of the Liberal Arts movement, with Cicero a strong supporter. Varro identified nine arts – grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, musical theory, medicine and architecture, the last two were omitted by subsequent writers, and Cicero helped popularise this style of education in Rome see D.C Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious and Institutional Context, 600 B.C to 1450 AD, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 138-14182 Cicero, De Oratore, Book 1, XLII promotes music, geometry, astronomy, literature, and oratory as the “contents of the arts.”83 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, Chapters 29-40, advocates knowledge of natural science, the mechanical arts, logic, dialectics, eloquence and rhetoric.84 C.E Quillen, ‘Reading Augustine, Augustine on Reading,’ 2485 D.L Jeffery, ‘The Pearl of Great Wisdom: The Deep and Abiding Biblical Roots of Western Liberal Education,’ Touchstone, October 2007, 25-30, 2686 Augustine, Retractions, I. 5, recounts his beginning of five textbooks on dialectic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic and philosophy, which he later abandoned when he took up his position in Hippo, see C. Kirwan, ‘Augustine’s Philosophy of Language,’ Cambridge Companion to Augustine, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 188

the scriptures,87 with only God as a teacher.88 A more tenable position is to

see Augustine’s position on the arts developing into that expressed in On

Christian Teaching, namely that the liberal arts are of subordinate use in

helping one understand the Bible.89 Topping (2010) identifies five

occasions where Augustine lists the elements of Plato’s educational

model.90 For Augustine, such an education is only useful so far as it aids in

the understanding and teaching of Scripture,91 though he thought those

with a liberal education worth engaging with intellectually,92 and his

writings carried references to literature and poetry common for somebody

educated that way.

Augustine saw the path to wisdom as a seven-step process – fear, piety,

knowledge, resolution, counsel, purification of heart, and finally wisdom.93

Such an education was valuable in stage three, but of only limited value to

finding true Christian wisdom. Scripture was to be read seeking

understanding,94 in order that one might no longer need the scriptures

except to instruct others.95 Knowledge of the arts was an important basis

for rhetoric, and thus for instructing others.

How To Teach The Bible: Augustine’s non-Guide to Rhetoric

87 P.R.L Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 262-269, R.N.S Topping, ‘Augustine on Liberal Education: Defender and Defensive,’ The Heythrop Journal, LI (2010), 381, 383 identifies three phases of Augustinian thought on a Liberal education – enthusiasm (Cassiciacum), repudiation (in Confessions), and finally adaptation, which came in the guise of On Christian Teaching. It is this final stage we are most interested in.88 C. Kirwan, ‘Augustine’s Philosophy of Language,’ Cambridge Companion to Augustine, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 190, Augustine, Retractions, I.II, says “there is no teacher who teaches man knowledge except God,” Kirwan argues that Augustine is not precluding human transfer of information in this statement, but rather writing against a Platonic conception of knowledge.89 There are two scholarly views on the issue – the first, as outlined by Topping (see above), the second suggests Augustine sought to dissolve the arts education completely. R.N.S Topping, ‘Augustine on Liberal Education: Defender and Defensive,’ The Heythrop Journal, LI (2010), 38390 R.N.S Topping, ‘Augustine on Liberal Education: Defender and Defensive,’ The Heythrop Journal, LI (2010), 379 identifies ord. 2.12.35–47, 2.4.13–14; quant. 23.72; retr. 1.6; conf. 4.16.30. 91 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, Chapters 29-4292 Augustine, ‘Letter 87: Augustine to Emeritus,’ in Augustine: Political Writings, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, ed. E.M Atkins, & R.J Dodaro, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 13693 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, Chapter 794 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, Chapter 995 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book One, “Therefore a person strengthened by faith, hope and love, and who steadfastly holds on to them, has no need of the scriptures except to instruct others.” –

Augustine described his conversion from orator to bishop as moving from

being a “vendor of words” to being a “preacher of the word.”96 For

Augustine, as for Cicero, true eloquence was not found in the ability to

speak, but also in knowing how to speak to one’s audience, understanding

a variety of philosophies and spheres of knowledge,97 and how they

related to ones teaching.98 Both men believed eloquence was better

caught than taught,99 both advocated employing three styles (the

elevated, moderate, and plain), with Augustine differing from Cicero in his

desire to choose the best style for the majority of the audience,100 both

thought oratory served to teach, please, and persuade.101

Augustine’s approach to teaching mirrors his own conversion experience

under rhetorical power of his mentor Ambrose, which he recounts in

Confessions.102 This experience, and his professional background as a

master of the art of rhetoric, shaped his approach to Christian teaching

and preaching. Volume four of On Christian Teaching represents

Augustine’s “plunder” of Cicero’s rhetorical method, and includes some

guidelines by which the Bible should be presented. While not providing a

comprehensive handbook to the rhetoric Augustine once taught,103 he

presents rhetoric as a morally neutral activity of benefit to the

96 R. Lueke, ‘The Rhetoric of Faith,’ Word and World, Volume VI, Number 3, 1986, 304-312, 309 97 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book II, 29-42, as earlier mentioned advocated “plundering gold from the Egyptians,” but also the study of various disciplines so long as they added to one’s understanding of scripture, Cicero, De Oratore, I. xv. 65-66 suggests technical knowledge improves teaching, and xxxiv. 158-159 that knowledge of philosophy, poetry, the arts, politics and humour give presentations a “seasoning of salt.”98 Cicero, De Oratore, I. xxi. 95, Cicero looked forward to discovering one whose speaking ability was matched by wide reading and knowledge, that man could be actually called eloquent, not “merely accomplished.”99 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book IV, Chapters 6-8, suggested eloquence was best learned reading the works of eloquent teachers, Cicero advocated translating speeches from eminent orators from Greek to Latin in order to discover fresh idioms and to make their words his, Cicero, De Oratore, I. xxxiv. 155 100 Curley, A, ‘Marcus Tullius Cicero,’ Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. A. Fitzgerald & J. Cavadini, 191101 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book IV, Chapters 4, 12 Curley, A, ‘Marcus Tullius Cicero,’ Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. A. Fitzgerald & J. Cavadini, 192102 Augustine, Confessions, 5.14.24, where he recounts how he sat under Ambrose teaching to marvel at his oratory ability, and found himself swayed by the power of his content, and eventually persuaded “For, although I took no trouble to learn what he said, but only to hear how he said it--for this empty concern remained foremost with me as long as I despaired of finding a clear path from man to thee--yet, along with the eloquence I prized, there also came into my mind the ideas which I ignored; for I could not separate them. And, while I opened my heart to acknowledge how skillfully he spoke, there also came an awareness of how truly he spoke--but only gradually.”103 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book IV, Chapter 1

proclamation of the gospel,104 his view of rhetoric was Aristotelian. Wrong

use did not negate right use.105

Augustine developed a Christian position on the relationship between

sapientia (wisdom) and eloquentia (eloquence). Wisdom was to be more

desired than eloquence.106 For Augustine eloquence followed

understanding, as teaching followed reading. Understanding came first, as

it was only once one understood that one could teach (a seemingly

obvious, but somewhat foreign concept to certain advocates of

eloquence).

Augustine realigned educational theory with the Bible as the foundation

for all learning, and then plunders the art of rhetoric as the basis for

teaching this system. He outlines the three styles of voice and when to

employ them,107 and demonstrates that eloquence is not just a good tool,

but also used by biblical writers,108 he calls for Christian teachers to live

lives consistent with their teaching,109 to pray before they preach,110 and in

a move consistent with his views on Egyptian gold, he also advocates the

borrowing of sermons from brilliant writers.111

Conclusion

Augustine’s framework for becoming a wise reader and teacher of the

Bible had an incredible, long-term, wide-ranging impact. Not just on the

teaching of the church, and a Christian approach of “faith seeking

understanding” but in the system of secular education as well. Augustine’s

Christian approach to the liberal arts styled education of the Romans, with

scripture as a foundation for learning, laid the platform for education

systems throughout the western world. While some have bemoaned is

subordination of scholarship as a handmaiden of faith as a setback in the

104 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book IV, Chapter 2105 Aristotle, Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Book 1, Chapter 1, “And if it be objected that one who uses such power of speech unjustly might do great harm, that is a charge which may be made in common against all good things except virtue, and above all against the things that are most useful, as strength, health, wealth, generalship. A man can confer the greatest of benefits by a right use of these, and inflict the greatest of injuries by using them wrongly.”106 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book IV, Chapter 5107 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book Four, Chapters 9-26108 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book Four, Chapter 7109 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book Four, Chapter 27110 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book Four, Chapters 15, 30111 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, Book Four, 29

development of education,112 Jeffery (2007) suggests his pedagogical

stratagems for reading Scripture became the “procedural and

methodological basis of nearly all scholarship in the humanities.”113

His interpretive model, which suffers somewhat as a product of its time,

lays the groundwork for solid exegesis and provides a useful

hermeneutical framework when reading Scripture for meaning. If it is not

promoting love of God, and love of one’s neighbour, or is not steering one

away from acts of crime and vice towards acts of love, then it’s not right.

His model for preaching and teaching, based on engaging and persuading

as many people as possible with the truth of the gospel is an ancient

handbook for modern missiology, and many of today’s preachers and

teachers would benefit from the exercise of considering Augustine’s

approach to understanding the Bible, and passing that understanding on

to your neighbours with the tools available.

112 D.C Lindberg,The Beginnings of Western Science, 150-151113 D.L Jeffery, ‘The Pearl of Great Wisdom: The Deep and Abiding Biblical Roots of Western Liberal Education,’ Touchstone, October 2007, 25-30, 27

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