On Christian Teaching: Books 1-3

Book One

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. I shall discuss the process of discovery first, and then that of presentation. This is a great and arduous task, difficult to sustain and also, I fear, a rash one to undertake; or so it would be if I were trusting in my own resources. But since in fact my hope of completing the work is based on God, from whom I already have much relevant material through meditation, I have no need to worry that he will fail to supply the remainder when I begin to share what has been given to me. For everything which does not give out when given away is not yet possessed in the way in which it should be possessed, while it is possessed and not given away. God says, 'the man who has will be given more'. He will give to those who have: this means that for those who make generous use of what they have received he will supplement and increase what he has given. One person had five loaves, and another had seven before the loaves began to be distributed to the hungry, but once the distribution had begun, they managed to fill baskets and hampers even after satisfying so many thousands of people. So just like the bread, which increased as it was broken, the material which God has already supplied to me for starting this work will be multiplied, through his own provision, when discussion of it begins. So in this act of service I will not only experience no shortage of material, but rather enjoy an astonishing abundance of it.

Four. All teaching is teaching of either things or signs, but things are learnt through signs. What I now call things in the strict sense are things such as logs, stones, sheep, and so on, which are not employed to signify something; but I do not include the log which we read that Moses threw into the bitter waters to make them lose their bitter taste, or the stone which

Jacob placed under his head, or the sheep which Abraham sacrificed in place of his son. These are things, but they are at the same time signs of other things. Five. There are other signs whose whole function consists in signifying. Words, for example: nobody uses words except in order to signify something. From this it may be understood what I mean by signs: those things which are employed to signify something. So every sign is also a thing, since what is not a thing does not exist. But it is not true that every thing is also a sign. Six. Therefore in my distinction of things and signs, when I speak of things, I shall speak of them in such a way that even if some of them can be employed to signify they do not impair the arrangement by which I will treat things first and signs later. And we must be careful to remember that what is under consideration at this stage is the fact that things exist, not that they signify something else besides themselves.

Seven. There are some things which are to be enjoyed, some which are to be used, and some whose function is both to enjoy and use. Those which are to be enjoyed make us happy; those which are to be used assist us and give us a boost, so to speak, as we press on towards our happiness, so that we may reach and hold fast to the things which make us happy. And we, placed as we are among things of both kinds, both enjoy and use them; but if we choose to enjoy things that are to be used, our advance is impeded and sometimes even diverted, and we are held back, or even put off, from attaining things which are to be enjoyed, because we are hamstrung by our love of lower things.

Eight. To enjoy something is to hold fast to it in love for its own sake. To use something is to apply whatever it may be to the purpose of obtaining what you love-if indeed it is something that ought to be loved. Suppose we were travellers who could live happily only in our homeland, and because our absence made us unhappy we wished to put an end to our misery and return to our homeland: we would need transport by land or sea which we could use to travel to our homeland, the object of our enjoyment. But if we were fascinated by the delights of the journey and the actual travelling, we would be perversely enjoying things that we should be using; and we would be reluctant to finish our journey quickly, being ensnared in the wrong kind of pleasure and estranged from the homeland whose pleasures could make us happy. Nine. So in this mortal life we are like travellers away from our Lord: if we wish to return to the homeland where we can be happy we must use this world, not enjoy it, in order to discern 'the invisible attributes of God, which are understood through what has been made' or, in other words, to ascertain what is eternal and spiritual from corporeal and temporal things.

Ten. The things which are to be enjoyed, then, are the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the Trinity comprised by them, which is a kind of single, supreme thing, shared by all who enjoy it-if indeed it is a thing and not the cause of all things, and if indeed it is a cause. It is not easy to find a suitable name for such excellence, but perhaps the Trinity is better called the one God from whom, through whom, and in whom everything is. Eleven. There is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit-each one of these is God, and all of them together are one God; each of these is a full substance and all together are one substance. The Father is neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit, the Son is neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but the Father is purely the Father, the Son purely the Son, and the Holy Spirit purely the Holy Spirit. Twelve. These three have the same eternal nature, the same unchangeableness, the same majesty, the same power. In the Father there is unity, in the Son equality, and in the Holy Spirit a harmony of unity and equality. And the three are all one because of the Father, all equal because of the Son, and all in harmony because of the Holy Spirit.

Thirteen. Have I spoken something, have I uttered something, worthy of God? No, I feel that all I have done is to wish to speak; if I did say something, it is not what I wanted to say. How do I know this? Simply because God is unspeakable. But what I have spoken would not have been spoken if it were unspeakable. For this reason God should not even be called unspeakable, because even when this word is spoken, something is spoken. There is a kind of conflict between words here: if what cannot be spoken is unspeakable, then it is not unspeakable, because it can actually be said to be unspeakable. It is better to evade this verbal conflict silently than to quell it disputatiously. Fourteen. Yet although nothing can be spoken in a way worthy of God, he has sanctioned the homage of the human voice, and chosen that we should derive pleasure from our words in praise of him. Hence the fact that he is called God: he himself is not truly known by the sound of these two syllables, yet when the word strikes our ears it leads all users of the Latin language to think of a supremely excellent and immortal being.

Fifteen. Now although he alone is thought of as the god of gods, he is also thought of by those who imagine, invoke, and worship other gods, whether in heaven or on earth, in so far as their thinking strives to reach a being than which there is nothing better or more exalted. They are, to be sure, inspired by various ideas of excellence, of which some relate to the senses, and others to the intellect, and accordingly those who are devoted to the bodily senses think that either the sky itself, or the brightest element that they see in the sky, or the world itself, is the god of gods. If they try to pass beyond the visible world, they envisage something bright, and in their futile imaginations represent it either as an infinite being or as one endowed with what they see as ultimate beauty; or else they think of the figure of a human body, if they value that above all else. Sixteen. If they do not believe in a single god of gods, but rather in many gods, or gods without number, all of them having equal status, then for these too they form a mental picture which corresponds to their various ideas of bodily excellence. Those who strive to behold the nature of God through their intellect place him above all visible and corporeal beings, indeed above all intelligible and spiritual beings, and above all beings that are subject to change. But they all vigorously contend for the excellence of God; it is impossible to find anyone who believes that God is a thing than which there exists something better. All, then, are agreed that what they value above all other things is God.

Seventeen. And since all who think of God think of something alive, the only thinkers whose conceptions of God are not absurd and unworthy can be those who think of life itself. Whatever corporeal form occurs to them, they establish that it either lives or does not live; and they esteem what lives more highly than what does not. They understand that the living corporeal form,

however outstanding its light, however outstanding its size, however outstanding its beauty, consists of two separate things, namely itself and the life by which it is energized; and they raise that life above the mass which is energized and activated by it to a position of unrivalled status. Eighteen. Then they proceed to examine that life, and if they find it has energy but not sense (as in the case of trees) they subordinate it to a sentient form of life (like that of livestock), and they subordinate that in turn to an intelligent form of life (like that of humans). Realizing the mutability of human life, they are obliged to subordinate that too to some unchangeable form of life, namely the life which is not intermittently wise but rather is wisdom itself. Nineteen. A wise mind (in other words, one that has acquired wisdom) was not wise before it acquired wisdom; but wisdom itself was never unwise, and never can be. If they did not see this, they could not, with such complete confidence, subordinate the changeable form of life to a form of life that was unchangeably wise. They certainly see that the actual standard of truth, by which they maintain the superiority of that life, is not subject to change, and they can only see this as belonging to a realm above their own nature, since they see themselves to be subject to change. Twenty. Nobody is so brazenly stupid as to say, 'how do you know that the form of life that is unchangeably wise is to be ranked more highly than the changeable form?'. The answer to his question, about how I know, is publicly and unchangeably present for all to behold. Anyone who fails to see this is like a blind man in the sun, who cannot be helped by the brightness of such a clear and powerful light shining into his eyes. Twenty-one. But anyone who sees this yet runs away from it has a mind whose insight is weakened by his habit of living in the shadows cast by the flesh. Those, then, who follow what is secondary and inferior to whatever they admit to be superior and more outstanding are, as it were, blown away from their homeland by the adverse winds of their own perverted characters.

Twenty-two. Since, therefore, we must enjoy to the full that truth which lives unchangeably, and since, within it, God the Trinity, the author and creator of everything, takes thought for the things that he has created, our minds must be purified so that they are able to perceive that light and then hold fast to it.

Let us consider this process of cleansing as a trek, or a voyage, to our homeland; though progress towards the one who is ever present is not made through space, but through goodness of purpose and character. Twenty-three. This we would be unable to do, if wisdom itself had not deigned to adapt itself to our great weakness and offered us a pattern for living; and it has done so actually in human form because we too are human. But because we act wisely when we come to wisdom, wisdom has been thought by arrogant people to have somehow acted foolishly when it came to us; and because we recover strength when we come to wisdom, wisdom has been reckoned as being somehow weak when it came to us. But 'the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men'. So although it is actually our homeland, it has also made itself the road to our homeland. Twenty-four. And although wisdom is everywhere present to the inner eye that is healthy and pure, it deigned to appear even to the carnal eyes of those whose inner eye was weak and impure. For because 'in the wisdom of God the world was incapable of recognizing God through its wisdom, it pleased God to save those who believe through the foolishness of preaching'. Twenty-five. It is not, then, by coming in a spatial sense but by appearing to mortals in mortal flesh that wisdom is said to have come to us. So it came to where it already was, because 'it was in this world and the world was made through it'. But since human beings, assimilated as they were to this world because of their desire to enjoy the created order instead of its actual creator-and so very aptly described by the word 'world'-did not recognize it, the evangelist said, 'and the world did not recognize it'. So, 'in the wisdom of God, the world was incapable of recognizing God through wisdom'. What then, since he was here already, was the reason for his coming, if not that it pleased God to save those who believed through the foolishness of preaching? Twenty-six. And what was the manner of his coming, if not this: "The word was made flesh and lived among us.'? When we speak, the word which we hold in our mind becomes a sound in order that what we have in our mind may pass through ears of flesh into the listener's mind: this is called speech. Our thought, however, is not converted into the same sound, but remains intact in its own home, suffering no diminution from its change as it takes on the form of a word in order to make its way into the ears. In the same way the word of God suffered no change although it became flesh in order to live in us.

Twenty-seven. The way to health is through medical care; God's care has taken it upon itself to heal and restore sinners by the same methods. When doctors bind wounds, they do this not just anyhow, but in an appropriate manner, so that the effectiveness of the ligature is matched by a kind of beauty; similarly the treatment given by wisdom was adapted to our wounds by its acceptance of human nature, healing sometimes by the principle of contrariety, sometimes by that of similarity. Twenty-eight. A doctor treating a physical wound applies some medications that are contrary-a cold one to a hot wound, a dry one to a wet wound, and so on-and also some that are similar, such as a round bandage to a round wound and a rectangular bandage to a rectangular wound, and he does not apply the same ligature to all wounds, but matches like with like. So for the treatment of human beings God's wisdom-in itself both doctor and medicine-offered itself in a similar way. Because human beings fell through pride it used humility in healing them. We were deceived by the wisdom of the serpent; we are freed by the foolishness of God. Twenty-nine. But just as that was called wisdom yet was foolishness to those who despise God, so this so-called foolishness is wisdom to those who overcome the devil. We made bad use of immortality, and so we died; Christ made good use of mortality, and so we live. The disease entered through a corrupted female mind; healing emerged from an intact female body. Also relevant to the principle of contrariety is the fact that our vices too are treated by the example of his virtues. Thirty. Examples of similarity in the kinds of bandages (as it were) applied to our limbs and wounds are these: it was one born of a woman that freed those deceived by a woman; it was a mortal man that freed mortals; and it was by death that he freed the dead. Careful consideration of many other such things-as may be done by those who are not hard pressed by the need to finish a book-reveals that the basic principle of Christian healing is one of contrariety and similarity.

Thirty-one. Now the belief in the Lord's resurrection from the dead and his ascent into heaven reinforces our faith with a great hope. For it clearly testifies how willingly he laid down his life for us, since he had it in his power to take it up again. What great confidence do believers have to buttress their hopes, when they consider the mighty things that such a mighty one suffered for those who did not yet believe! And as he is expected to come from heaven as judge of the living and the dead, he instils great fear into the uncommitted, so that they may develop a serious commitment and yearn for him in lives of goodness rather than fear him in lives of wickedness. Thirty-two. For what words can express, what thoughts conceive, the reward which he is going to give at the end, seeing that he has already given us, to support us on our journey, so much of his spirit, in order that in the troubles of this life we may have this enormous confidence and delight in one whom we do not yet behold, and seeing that he has also bestowed individual gifts for the consolidation of his church, in order that we may perform the tasks that he has indicated not only without murmuring but even with positive enjoyment? Thirty-three. The church is his body, as the teaching of the apostle shows; it is also called his bride. So he ties together his own body, with its many members who perform different tasks, in a bond of unity and love like a healing bandage. And at the present time he trains it and purges it by means of various disagreeable medicines so that when it has been saved from the world he may take as his wife for eternity the church, which has no spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

Thirty-four. Furthermore, given that we are on a road-a spiritual road, not a spatial one-and one blocked as it were by thorny hedgerows, flourishing through the evil influences of our earlier sins-could he who chose to lay himself down as the way by which we could return have done anything more generous and merciful than to forgive the converted all their sins and, by being crucified for us, pull out the firmly fixed barriers to our return? Thirty-five. He accordingly gave keys to his church so that whatever it loosed on earth should also be loosed in heaven, and whatever it bound on earth should also be bound in heaven. So that if anyone does not believe that his sins are forgiven in God's church they are not forgiven, but if anyone does believe and reform, turning from them to the right way, he is healed, within the bosom of the same church, by the very act of believing and reform. A person who does not believe that his sins can be forgiven is made worse by despair, feeling that nothing better awaits him than to be wicked, since he has no faith in the results of being converted.

Thirty-six. Now just as the abandonment of one's earlier life and behavior, which comes by repentance, is a sort of death of the soul, so too the dissolution of one's former mode of existence is the death of the body. And just as the soul is reformed after repentance, by which the soul kills off its earlier evil character, so we must believe and hope that after this death, to which we are all liable by the bondage of sin, the body is changed to something better at the time of resurrection, with the result, not that flesh and blood take over the kingdom of heaven-this is impossible-but that this corruptible thing will put on incorruptibility and this mortal thing immortality, and that without making any trouble (for it will experience no deprivation) it will be energized by the blessed and perfect soul in supreme tranquillity. Thirty-seven. If a person's soul does not die to the present world and begin to be conformed to the truth, it is drawn by the death of the body into a worse death and reborn not to experience a new heavenly state but to suffer the retribution of punishment. Thirty-eight. This is contained in our faith, and this, we must believe, is the real situation: neither the soul nor the human body suffers total destruction, but the wicked rise to unthinkable agony, the good to eternal life.

Thirty-nine. Among all these things, then, it is only the eternal and unchangeable things which I mentioned that are to be enjoyed; other things are to be used so that we may attain the full enjoyment of those things. We ourselves who enjoy and use other things are things. A human being is an important kind of thing, being made 'in the image and likeness of God' not by virtue of having a mortal body but by virtue of having a rational soul and thus a higher status than animals. Forty. It is therefore an important question, whether humans should enjoy one another or use one another, or both. We have been commanded to love one another, but the question is whether one person should be loved by another on his own account or for some other reason. If on his own account, we enjoy him; if for another reason, we use him. In my opinion, he should be loved for another reason. For if something is to be loved on its own account, it is made to constitute the happy life, even if it is not as yet the reality but the hope of it which consoles us at this time. But 'cursed is he who puts his hope in a man'.

Forty-one. Neither should a person enjoy himself, if you think closely about this, because he should not love himself on his own account, but only on account of the one who is to be enjoyed. A person is at his best when in his whole life he strives towards the unchangeable form of life and holds fast to it wholeheartedly. But if he loves himself on his own account, he does not relate himself to God, but turns to himself and not to something unchangeable. And for this reason it is with a certain insufficiency that he enjoys himself, because when totally absorbed and controlled by the unchangeable good he is a better man than when his attention leaves it, even if it turns to himself. Forty-two. So if you ought to love yourself not on your own account but on account of the one who is the most proper object of your love, another person should not be angry if you love him too on account of God. For the divinely established rule of love says 'you shall love your neighbour as yourself' but God 'with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind', so that you may devote all your thoughts and all your life and all your understanding to the one from whom you actually receive the things that you devote to him. Forty-three. And when it says 'all your heart, all your soul, all your mind', it leaves no part of our life free from this obligation, no part free as it were to back out and enjoy some other thing; any other object of love that enters the mind should be swept towards the same goal as that to which the whole flood of our love is directed. So a person who loves his neighbour properly should, in concert with him, aim to love God with all his heart, all his soul, and all his mind. In this way, loving him as he would himself, he relates his love of himself and his neighbour entirely to the love of God, which allows not the slightest trickle to flow away from it and thereby diminish it.

Forty-four. It is not the case that all things which are to be used are to be loved; but only those which exist in some kind of association with us and are related to God, like a man or an angel, or which, being related to us, stand in need of the kindness of God as received through us, like the body. The martyrs, certainly, did not love the crime of those who persecuted them, but used it to win their way to God. Forty-five. There are four things that are to be loved-one, that which is above us; two, that which we are; three, that which is close to us; four, that which is beneath us. No commandments needed to be given about the second and fourth of these. For however much a man may lapse from the truth, he retains a love of himself and a love of his own body. The mind which shuns the unchangeable light which is sovereign over all aims to exercise sovereignty over itself and its body, and so cannot fail to love both itself and its body.

Forty-six. And it thinks it has achieved something great if it can also dominate its peers, by which I mean other men. For it is the instinct of a corrupt mind to covet and claim as its due what is really due to God alone. This kind of self-love is better called hatred. It is unjust because it wants what is beneath it to serve it while itself refusing to serve what is above it; and it has been very well said that 'the person who loves injustice hates his own soul'. For this reason such a mind becomes weak and is tormented because of its mortal body, Forty-seven. for it is inevitable that it should love the body and be weighed down by the body's corruption. A body's immortality and immunity from corruption derives from health of mind, and health of mind means resolutely holding fast to something better, namely the unchangeable God. But when it aspires to dominate those who are its natural peers, that is, its fellow-men, its arrogance is quite intolerable.

Forty-eight. So nobody hates himself. On this point there has never been any dispute with any sect. But neither does anyone hate his own body. What the apostle said is true: 'no-one ever felt hatred for his own body.' Some say that they would prefer not to have a body at all, but they are mistaken. For what they hate is not their body, but its imperfections and its dead weight. Forty-nine. What they want is not to have no body at all, but to have one free from corruption and totally responsive; they think that if the body were such a thing it would not be a body, because they consider such a thing to be a soul. When they seem to persecute their own body by a kind of repression, and by hardships, their aim (if they are doing it rightly) is not to have no body at all but to have one that is subservient and ready for necessary tasks. Fifty. It is the lusts which misuse the body-in other words, the habits and inclinations of a soul to enjoy what is inferior-that they are trying to eliminate by this strenuous drilling of the body itself. After all, they do not kill themselves, and have some concern for their health.

Fifty-one. Those who have this misguided aim are waging war on their body as if it were a natural enemy. They are misled by their reading of the words 'the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh; for these are in conflict with each other'. These words were spoken because of the ungovernable habits of the flesh, against which the spirit lusts not in order to destroy the body but to make it subservient to the spirit, as our nature demands, by taming its lusts, that is, its evil habits. Fifty-two. For since it will be the case after the resurrection that the body will live for ever in a state of utmost tranquillity and total subservience to the spirit, it should be our concern in this life that the tendency of the flesh is reformed and not allowed to resist the spirit with its unruly impulses. But until this happens, the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. The spirit fights back not out of hatred, but to establish its primacy, because it wants the body it loves to be subservient to something better; nor does the flesh fight back out of hatred, but because of the stranglehold of these habits which, after establishing themselves in the stock of our ancestors, have become naturally ingrained. Fifty-three. The spirit's aim in subduing the flesh is to break the perverse contracts, so to speak, of these evil habits and establish the peace brought by good habits. Even those who are corrupted by false ideas and hate their bodies would not be prepared to lose one eye, even painlessly, and even if the sight remaining in the other eye were as good as the sight that there had been in both, unless they were constrained by some greater necessity. This and other arguments make it clear enough to those who seek the truth without prejudice that the apostle's judgement was sound when he said 'no-one ever felt hatred for his own body'. And he added, 'but one feeds it and looks after it, as Christ did to the church'.

Fifty-four. Human beings must also be told how to love, that is, how to love themselves so as to do themselves good. (It would be absurd to doubt that anyone wishes to love himself and do himself good.) They must also be told how to love their own bodies so as to look after them systematically and sensibly; for it is equally obvious that one loves one's own body and wants it to be healthy and sound. Fifty-five. Now it is possible to love something more than the health and soundness of one's own body. It is well known that many people have voluntarily undergone pain and the amputation of limbs in order to obtain other things which they valued more. But it should not be said that someone does not value his body's health and safety just because he values something else more highly. Fifty-six. A miser buys himself bread in spite of the fact that he loves money; in doing so he gives away the money which he loves so much and wants to have more of, but he does this because he puts a greater value on the health of his body, which needs the bread for its sustenance. It is pointless to discuss such an obvious point further-though the heresy of the wicked often leaves us with no choice.

Fifty-seven. There is, then, no need to be instructed to love oneself and one's body; we love what we are and what is inferior to us but belongs to us, according to an immovable unvarying natural law, one which was also made for animals, because even animals love themselves and their bodies. It therefore remains for us to receive instruction about what is above us and what is close to us. Scripture says, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind', and, 'you shall love your neighbour as yourself.' On these two commandments depend the entire law and the prophets.' Fifty-eight. The aim of the commandment is love, a double love of God and of one's neighbour. But if you understand by this your whole person-mind and body-and your whole neighbour-that is, his mind and body, for a person consists of mind and body-no class of things to be loved is missing from these two commandments. Although love of God comes first and the manner of loving him is clearly laid down, in such a way that everything else flows into it, nothing seems to have been said about self-love. But when it is said 'you shall love your neighbour as yourself', your own self-love is not neglected.

Fifty-nine. The person who lives a just and holy life is one who is a sound judge of these things. He is also a person who has ordered his love, so that he does not love what it is wrong to love, or fail to love what should be loved, or love too much what should be loved less or love too little what should be loved more, or love two things equally if one of them should be loved either less or more than the other, or love things either more or less if they should be loved equally. Every sinner, qua sinner, should not be loved; every human being, qua human being, should be loved on God's account; and God should be loved for himself. Sixty. And if God is to be loved more than any human being, each person should love God more than he loves himself. Likewise, another human being should be loved more than our own bodies, because all these things are to be loved on account of God whereas another person can enjoy God together with us in a way in which the body cannot, since the body lives only through the soul, and it is the soul by which we enjoy God.

Sixty-one. All people should be loved equally. But you cannot do good to all people equally, so you should take particular thought for those who by the chance of place or time or anything else are, as if by lot, in particularly close contact with you. Sixty-two. Suppose that you had plenty of something which had to be given to someone in need of it but could not be given to two people, and you met two people, neither of whom had a greater need or a closer relationship to you than the other: you could do nothing more just than to choose by lot the person to whom you should give what could not be given to both. Analogously, since you cannot take thought for all men, you must settle by lot in favour of the one who happens to be more closely associated with you in temporal matters.

Sixty-three. Of all those who are capable of enjoying God together with us, we love some whom we are helping, and some who are helping us; some whose help we need and some whose needs we are meeting; some to whom we give no benefit and some by whom we do not expect any benefit to be given to us. But it should be our desire that they all love God together with us, and all the help that we give to or receive from them must be related to this one end. Sixty-four. In the theatre-that den of wickedness-someone who loves an actor and revels in his skill as if it were a great good, or even the supreme one, also loves all those who share his love, not on their account, but on account of the one they equally love. The more passionate he is in his love, the more he tries by whatever methods he can to make his hero loved by a greater number of people, and the more he desires to point him out to a greater number of people. If he sees someone unenthusiastic he rouses him as much as he can with his praises. If he finds anyone antagonistic, he violently hates that person's hatred of his hero and goes all out to remove it by whatever methods he can. So what should we do in sharing the love of God, whose full enjoyment constitutes the happy life? It is God from whom all those who love him derive both their existence and their love; it is God who frees us from any fear that he can fail to satisfy anyone to whom he becomes known; it is God who wants himself to be loved, not in order to gain any reward for himself but to give to those who love him an eternal reward-namely himself, the object of their love. Sixty-five. Hence the fact that we also love our enemies. We do not fear them, for they cannot take away from us what we love, but we pity them, for they hate us all the more because they are separated from the one we love. If they turned to him, it is inevitable that they would love him as the goodness which is the source of all happiness and love us as joint participants in such goodness.

Sixty-six. At this point there arise questions about the angels. They are happy because they enjoy the one whom we too desire to enjoy; and the more we enjoy him in this life, whether 'in a mirror' or 'obscurely', the easier it is for us to endure our absence and the stronger our yearning to end it. But it may be asked, not unreasonably, whether love of the angels is also covered by these two commandments. Sixty-seven. That the commandment to love our neighbour excludes no human being is made clear by our Lord himself in the gospel and by the apostle Paul. When our Lord was asked by the man to whom he had pronounced these same two commandments and said that the whole law and the prophets depended on them, 'And who is my neighbour?', he told the story of a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho who fell among thieves, was badly beaten up by them, and left injured and half-dead. He taught that the man's only neighbour was the man who showed kindness in reviving and healing him; and he put this in such a way that when questioned the questioner himself admitted it. Sixty-eight. The Lord said to him, 'Go and do the same' so it is clear that we should understand by our neighbour the person to whom an act of compassion is due if he needs it or would be due if he needed it. It follows from this that a person from whom an act of compassion is due to us in our turn is also our neighbour. For the word 'neighbour' implies a relationship: one can only be a neighbour to a neighbour. Sixty-nine. Who can fail to see that there is no exception to this, nobody to whom compassion is not due? The commandment extends even to our enemies; in the words of our Lord once again, 'Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.' Seventy. This is also the teaching of the apostle Paul when he says, "The commandments 'You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, you shall not steal, you shall not covet', and any other commandment, are summed up in this text 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' The love of one's neighbour does no wrong.' Anyone who thinks that the apostle was not here giving commandments that embraced all people is compelled to admit something totally absurd and totally wicked: that Paul thought it no sin to violate the wife of a non-Christian or an enemy, or to kill him, or covet his property. If this conclusion is absurd, it is clear that all people must be reckoned as neighbours, because evil must not be done to anyone.

Seventy-one. So if the person to whom compassion must be shown and the person by whom it must be shown to us are rightly called neighbours, it is obvious that the commandment by which we are instructed to love our neighbour also embraces the holy angels, who perform so many acts of compassion on our behalf, as can easily be observed in many passages of the holy scriptures. It follows that even the Lord God himself wanted to be called our neighbour; for the Lord Jesus Christ made clear that it was he himself who assisted the man who lay half-dead on the road, beaten up and abandoned by the robbers. Seventy-two. And in a prayer the prophet says, 'I grieved for him as for a neighbour, or a brother.' But because the divine substance is altogether transcendent and far above our own nature, the commandment to love God was kept distinct from the commandment to love our neighbour. God shows compassion to us because of his own kindness, and we in turn show it to one another because of his kindness: in other words, he pities us so that we may enjoy him, and we in our turn pity one another so that we may enjoy him.

Seventy-three. There is still an element of uncertainty here. I am saying that we enjoy a thing which we love for itself, and that we should enjoy only a thing by which we are made happy, but use everything else. God loves us (and the divine scripture often commends his love towards us), but in what way does he love us-so as to use us or to enjoy us? Seventy-four. If he enjoys us, he stands in need of our goodness, which only a madman could assert; for all our goodness either comes from him or actually is him. Is it not quite clear and beyond all doubt that light does not stand in need of the brightness of the things which it illuminates? The prophet says very clearly, 'I said to the Lord, "You are my Lord, since you do not stand in need of my goodness." ' So God does not enjoy us, but uses us. (If he neither enjoys nor uses us, then I fail to see how he can love us at all.)

Seventy-five. But he does not use us in the way that we use things; for we relate the things which we use to the aim of enjoying God's goodness, whereas God relates his use of us to his own goodness. We exist because he is good, and we are good to the extent that we exist. Moreover, because he is also just, we are not evil with impunity; if we are evil, to that extent we exist less. God exists in the supreme sense, and the original sense, of the word. He is altogether unchangeable, and it is he who could say with full authority 'I am who I am', and 'You will say to them, "I have been sent by the one who";' so it is true of other things which exist that they could not exist except by him, and that they are good to the extent that they have received their existence from him. Seventy-six. So the kind of use attributed to God, that by which he uses us, is related not to his own advantage, but solely to his goodness. If we pity someone or take thought for someone, we do so for that person's advantage, and we concentrate on that; but somehow there also results an advantage to us, since God does not let the compassion we show to the needy go unrewarded. This reward is the supreme reward-that we may thoroughly enjoy him and that all of us who enjoy him may enjoy one another in him.

Seventy-seven. For if we enjoy one another in ourselves, we remain on the road and put our hopes of happiness on a human being or an angel. This is something that arrogant people and arrogant angels pride themselves on; they rejoice when the hopes of others are placed on them. But a holy person or a holy angel restores us when we are weary and when we desire to rest in them and stay with them, using either the resources which they have received for our sakes or those which they have received for their own sakes (but in either case they have certainly received them); and then they impel us, thus restored, to go to the one by the enjoyment of whom we likewise are made happy. Seventy-eight. The apostle exclaims, 'Was it Paul that was crucified for you? Or were you baptized in Paul's name?' and 'Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the increase.' And the angel warned the man who was adoring him that he should adore God instead, the master under whom he was but the man's fellow servant.

Seventy-nine. When you enjoy a human being in God, you are enjoying God rather than that human being. For you enjoy the one by whom you are made happy, and you will one day rejoice that you have attained the one in whom you now set your hope of attaining him. So Paul says to Philemon: 'So, brother, I shall enjoy you in the Lord.' If he had not added the words 'in the Lord', and just said, 'I shall enjoy you', he would have been setting his hopes of happiness on Philemon. Yet the idea of enjoying someone or something is very close to that of using someone or something together with love. Eighty. For when the object of love is present, it inevitably brings with it pleasure as well. If you go beyond this pleasure and relate it to your permanent goal, you are using it, and are said to enjoy it not in the literal sense but in a transferred sense. But if you hold fast and go no further, making it the goal of your joy, then you should be described as enjoying it in the true and literal sense of the word. This is to be done only in the case of the Trinity, the supreme and unchangeable good.

Eighty-one. Notice how, although the truth itself and the word by which all things were made became flesh so that it could live among us, the apostle says, 'And if we knew Christ according to the flesh, we do not know him in the same way now.' In fact Christ, who chose to offer himself not only as a possession for those who come to their journey's end but also as a road for those who come to the beginning of the ways, chose to become flesh. Whence the saying, 'God created me at the beginning of his ways,' so that those who wanted to come could begin from there. Eighty-two. The apostle, then, although still walking on the road and following God as he called him to the prize of a higher calling, none the less 'forgetting what was behind and straining forward to what lay ahead' had already passed beyond the beginning of the ways. In other words, he was not deprived of the one from whom the journey must actually be undertaken and begun by all who long to come to the truth and abide in eternal life. For Christ says, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life'; that is, 'you come by me, you come to me, you abide in me.' Eighty-three. For when you come to him, you come also to the Father, because God, to whom he is equal, is recognized through his equal, and the spirit binds us and as it were cements us together, so that we can abide in the supreme and unchangeable good. From this it is to be inferred that nothing must detain us on our way, since not even the Lord, at least in his graciously chosen role of being our way, wanted to detain us, but wanted us to pass on, not sticking feebly to temporal things, even though they were accepted and endured by him for our salvation, but rather hastening eagerly through them so that in our journey to the one who has freed our nature from temporal things and set it at the Father's right hand we may achieve progress and success.

Eighty-four. The chief purpose of all that we have been saying in our discussion of things is to make it understood that the fulfilment and end of the law and all the divine scriptures is to love the thing which must be enjoyed and the thing which together with us can enjoy that thing (since there is no need for a commandment to love oneself). Eighty-five. To enlighten us and enable us, the whole temporal dispensation was set up by divine providence for our salvation. We must make use of this, not with a permanent love and enjoyment of it, but with a transient love and enjoyment of our journey, or of our conveyances (so to speak) or any other expedients whatsoever (there may be a more appropriate word), so that we love the means of transport only because of our destination.

Eighty-six. So anyone who thinks that he has understood the divine scriptures or any part of them, but cannot by his understanding build up this double love of God and neighbor, has not yet succeeded in understanding them. Anyone who derives from them an idea which is useful for supporting this love but fails to say what the writer demonstrably meant in the passage has not made a fatal error, and is certainly not a liar. In a liar there is a desire to say what is false, and that is why we find many who want to lie but nobody who wants to be misled. Eighty-seven. Since a person lies knowingly but is misled unknowingly, it is clear enough that in any given situation the person misled is better than the one who lies, since it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it. Everyone who lies commits injustice; so anyone who believes a lie is sometimes useful believes that injustice is sometimes useful. No-one who lies keeps faith while lying-he certainly desires that the person he lies to should put faith in him, but when lying he does not keep faith-and everyone who breaks faith is unjust. So either injustice is sometimes useful-which is impossible-or lying is always useless. Eighty-eight. Anyone with an interpretation of the scriptures that differs from that of the writer is misled, but not because the scriptures are lying. If, as I began by saying, he is misled by an idea of the kind that builds up love, which is the end of the commandment, he is misled in the same way as a walker who leaves his path by mistake but reaches the destination to which the path leads by going through a field. But he must be put right and shown how it is more useful not to leave the path, in case the habit of deviating should force him to go astray or even adrift.

Eighty-nine. It often happens that by thoughtlessly asserting something that the author did not mean an interpreter runs up against other things which cannot be reconciled with that original idea. If he agrees that these things are true and certain, his original interpretation could not possibly be true, and by cherishing his own idea he comes in some strange way to be more displeased with scripture than with himself. If he encourages this evil to spread it will be his downfall. 'For we walk by faith, not by sight,' and faith will falter if the authority of holy scripture is shaken; and if faith falters, love itself decays. Ninety. For if someone lapses in his faith, he inevitably lapses in his love as well, since he cannot love what he does not believe to be true. If on the other hand he both believes and loves, then by good conduct and by following the rules of good behaviour he gives himself reason to hope that he will attain what he loves. So there are these three things which all knowledge and prophecy serve: faith, hope, and love. Ninety-one. But faith will be replaced by the sight of visible reality, and hope by the real happiness which we shall attain, whereas love will actually increase when these things pass away. If, through faith, we love what we cannot yet see, how much greater will our love be when we have begun to see! And if, through hope, we love something that we have not yet attained, how much greater will our love be when we have attained it! Ninety-two. There is this important difference between temporal things and eternal things: something temporal is loved more before it is possessed, but will lose its appeal when attained, for it does not satisfy the soul, whose true and certain abode is eternity. The eternal, on the other hand, is loved more passionately when obtained than when desired. No-one who desires it is allowed to think more highly of it than is warranted (it would then disappoint when found to be less impressive); but however high one's expectations on the way one will find it even more impressive on arrival.

Ninety-three. 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. That is why many people, relying on these three things, actually live in solitude without any texts of the scriptures. They are, I think, a fulfilment of the saying 'If there are prophecies, they will lose their meaning; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge that too will lose its meaning.' Ninety-four. By these devices (so to speak) such an edifice of faith, hope, and love has been built in them that they do not seek what is imperfect, for they hold what is perfect-perfect, that is, as far as anything can be in this life; for in comparison with the life to come the life of no righteous or holy man in this world is perfect. This is why scripture says, 'there remain faith, hope, and love, these three; the greatest of these is love': when one reaches eternity the other two will pass away and love will remain in an enhanced and a more certain form.

Ninety-five. So when someone has learnt that the aim of the commandment is 'love from a pure heart, and good conscience and genuine faith', he will be ready to relate every interpretation of the holy scriptures to these three things and may approach the task of handling these books with confidence. For when the apostle said 'love' he added 'from a pure heart', so that nothing is loved except what should be loved. He added 'good' to 'conscience' because of hope; for a person with the incubus of a bad conscience despairs of reaching what he loves and believes. Thirdly, he said 'with genuine faith': Ninety-six. for if our faith is free of untruthfulness then we do not love what should not be loved, whereas by living aright it is impossible for our hope to be in any way misguided.

I have chosen to speak of the things which are objects of our faith only to the extent that I considered necessary for the present context; much has already been said by me and by others in other works. This is the end of this book. The remainder of my discussion, in as much detail as the Lord allows, will be about signs.

Book Two

One. When I was writing about things I began with the warning that attention should be paid solely to the fact that they existed, and not to anything besides themselves that they might signify. Now that I am discussing signs, I must say, conversely, that attention should not be paid to the fact that they exist, but rather to the fact that they are signs, or, in other words, that they signify. For a sign is a thing which of itself makes some other thing come to mind, besides the impression that it presents to the senses. So when we see a footprint we think that the animal whose footprint it is has passed by; when we see smoke we realize that there is fire beneath it; when we hear the voice of an animate being we note its feeling; and when the trumpet sounds soldiers know they must advance or retreat or do whatever else the state of the battle demands.

Two. Some signs are natural, others given. Natural signs are those which without a wish or any urge to signify cause something else besides themselves to be known from them, like smoke, which signifies fire. It does not signify fire because it wishes to do so; but because of our observation and attention to things that we have experienced it is realized that there is fire beneath it, even if nothing but smoke appears. The footprint of a passing animal also belongs to this category. The expression of an angry or depressed person signifies an emotional state even if there is no such wish on the part of the person who is angry or depressed, and likewise any other emotion is revealed by the evidence of the face even if we are not seeking to reveal it. It is not my intention to discuss this whole category now, but since it comes into my classification it could not be omitted altogether. So let the above remarks suffice.

Three. Given signs are those which living things give to each other, in order to show, to the best of their ability, the emotions of their minds, or anything that they have felt or learnt. There is no reason for us to signify something (that is, to give a sign) except to express and transmit to another's mind what is in the mind of the person who gives the sign. It is this category of signs-to the extent that it applies to humans-that I have decided to examine and discuss, because even the divinely given signs contained in the holy scriptures have been communicated to us by the human beings who wrote them. Four. Some animals, too, have signs among themselves by which they show the desires of their minds: a cockerel on finding food gives a vocal sign to its hen to come quickly, and a dove calls to, or is called by, its mate by cooing. Many other such signs are observed regularly. Whether (as with a facial expression or a shout of pain) they accompany emotion without any desire to signify, or whether they are really given in order to signify something, is another question, and irrelevant to the matter in hand. I am excluding it from this work as not essential.

Five. Some of the signs by which people communicate their feelings to one another concern the eyes; most of them concern the ears, and a very small number concern the other senses. When we nod, we give a sign just to the eyes of the person whom we want, by means of that sign, to make aware of our wishes. Certain movements of the hands signify a great deal. Actors, by the movement of all their limbs, give certain signs to the cognoscenti and, as it were, converse with the spectators' eyes; and it is through the eyes that flags and standards convey the wishes of military commanders. All these things are, to coin a phrase, visible words. Six. But most signs, as I said, and especially verbal ones, concern the ears. A trumpet, a flute, and a lyre generally produce not just a pleasant sound but one that is also significant. But these signs are very few compared with words. Words have gained an altogether dominant role among humans in signifying the ideas conceived by the mind that a person wants to reveal. Seven. It is true that our Lord gave a sign through the smell of the ointment by which his feet were anointed, and that in the sacrament of his body and blood he signified his wishes through the sense of taste, and that the healing of the woman who touched the border of his garment has its significance. But an incalculable number of the signs by which people disclose their thoughts consist in words. I have been able to express in words all the various kinds of sign that I have briefly mentioned, but in no way could I have expressed all my words in terms of signs.

Eight. But spoken words cease to exist as soon as they come into contact with the air, and their existence is no more lasting than that of their sound; hence the invention, in the form of letters, of signs of words. In this way words are presented to the eyes, not in themselves, but by certain signs peculiar to them. These signs could not be shared by all nations, because of the sin of human disunity by which each one sought hegemony for itself. This pride is signified by the famous tower raised towards heaven at the time when wicked men justly received incompatible languages to match their incompatible minds. Nine. Consequently even divine scripture, by which assistance is provided for the many serious disorders of the human will, after starting off in one language, in which it could have conveniently been spread throughout the world, was circulated far and wide in the various languages of translators and became known in this way to the Gentiles for their salvation. The aim of its readers is simply to find out the thoughts and wishes of those by whom it was written down and, through them, the will of God, which we believe these men followed as they spoke.

Ten. But casual readers are misled by problems and ambiguities of many kinds, mistaking one thing for another. In some passages they find no meaning at all that they can grasp at, even falsely, so thick is the fog created by some obscure phrases. I have no doubt that this is all divinely predetermined, so that pride may be subdued by hard work and intellects which tend to despise things that are easily discovered may be rescued from boredom and reinvigorated. Eleven. Why is it, I wonder, that if someone should say that there exist holy and perfect men by whose lives and conduct the church of Christ tears away those who come to it from their various superstitions, and by inspiring them to imitate their goodness somehow incorporates them into itself; and that there exist servants of the true God, good and faithful men who, putting aside the burdens of this life, have come to the holy font of baptism, arise from it born again with the Holy Spirit, and then produce the fruit of a double love, that is love of God and love of their neighbor-why is it that someone who says this gives less pleasure to an audience than by expounding in the same terms this passage from the Song of Songs, where the church is addressed and praised like a beautiful woman: 'Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes ascending from the pool, all of which give birth to twins, and there is not a sterile animal among them'? Twelve. Surely one learns the same lesson as when one hears it in plain words without the support of the imagery? And yet somehow it gives me more pleasure to contemplate holy men, when I see them as the teeth of the church tearing men away from their errors and transferring them into its body, breaking down their rawness by biting and chewing. And it is with the greatest of pleasure that I visualize the shorn ewes, their worldly burdens set aside like fleeces, ascending from the pool (baptism) and all giving birth to twins (the two commandments of love), with none of them failing to produce this holy fruit. Thirteen. Exactly why this picture gives me greater pleasure than if no such imagery were presented by the divine books, since the topic is the same, and the lesson the same, it is difficult to say; this, however, is another question entirely. But no one disputes that it is much more pleasant to learn lessons presented through imagery, and much more rewarding to discover meanings that are won only with difficulty. Fourteen. Those who fail to discover what they are looking for suffer from hunger, whereas those who do not look, because they have it in front of them, often die of boredom. In both situations the danger is lethargy. Fifteen. It is a wonderful and beneficial thing that the Holy Spirit organized the holy scripture so as to satisfy hunger by means of its plainer passages and remove boredom by means of its obscurer ones. Virtually nothing is unearthed from these obscurities which cannot be found quite plainly expressed somewhere else.

Sixteen. It is therefore necessary above all else to be moved by the fear of God towards learning his will: what it is that he instructs us to seek or avoid. This fear will necessarily inspire reflection about our mortality and future death, and by nailing our flesh to the wood of the cross as it were crucify all our presumptuous impulses. Seventeen. After that it is necessary, through holiness, to become docile, and not contradict holy scripture-whether we understand it (as when it hits at some of our vices) or fail to understand it (as when we feel that we could by ourselves gain better knowledge or give better instruction)-but rather ponder and believe that what is written there, even if obscure, is better and truer than any insights that we may gain by our own efforts.

Eighteen. After these two stages of fear and holiness comes the third stage, that of knowledge, with which I now propose to deal. This is the area in which every student of the divine scriptures exerts himself, and what he will find in them is quite simply that he must love God for himself, and his neighbor for God's sake, and that he must love God with his whole heart, his whole soul, and his whole mind, and his neighbor as himself-in other words, that his love of his neighbor, like his own self-love, should be totally related to God. Nineteen. (I have dealt with these two commandments in the previous book, in my discussion of things.) It is vital that the reader first learns from the scriptures that he is entangled in a love of this present age, of temporal things, that is, and is far from loving God and his neighbor to the extent that scripture prescribes. It is at this point that the fear which makes him ponder the judgement of God, and the holiness which makes it impossible for him not to admit and submit to the authority of the holy books, compel him to deplore his own condition. Twenty. For this knowledge makes a person with good reason to hope not boastful but remorseful; in this state he obtains by constant prayer the encouragement of divine assistance, so that he is not crushed by despair. And so he begins to be at the fourth stage-that of fortitude-which brings a hunger and thirst after righteousness. In this state he extricates himself from all the fatal charms of transient things; turning away from these, he turns to the love of eternal things, namely the unchangeable unity which is also the Trinity.

Twenty-one. When he beholds this light (as far as he is able to), shining as it does even into remote places, and realizes that because of the weakness of his vision he cannot bear its brilliance, he is at the fifth stage-that is, in the resolve of compassion-and purifies his mind, which is somehow turbulent and feuding with itself because of the impurities accumulated by its desire of what is inferior. Here he strenuously occupies himself with the love of his neighbor and becomes perfect in it. Twenty-two. Full of hope now, and at full strength, since he has come to love even his enemy, he rises to the sixth stage, in which he now purifies the eye by which God may actually be seen-to the extent that he may be seen by those who, to the best of their ability, die to this world; for they see to the extent that they die to the world, and to the extent that they live in it they fail to see. The vision of that light, although it now begins to appear more steady and not only more tolerable but also more pleasant, is none the less said to be seen still obscurely and through a mirror; this is because we walk more by faith than by sight as we travel in this life, even though we are citizens of heaven. At this stage he purifies the eye of his heart so that he does not give a higher priority than the truth, or indeed an equal one, even to his neighbor; nor does he give such precedence to himself, since he does not give it to the one whom he loves as himself. So this holy person will have a heart so single-minded and purified that he will not be deflected from the truth either by an eagerness to please men or by the thought of avoiding any of the troubles which beset him in this life. Such a son ascends to wisdom, which is the seventh and last stage, enjoyed by those who are calm and peaceful. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom": these are the stages by which we progress from the one to the other.

Twenty-four. But let us take our thoughts back to the third stage. Here I propose to discuss and consider whatever ideas the Lord may provide. The most expert investigator of the divine scriptures will be the person who, firstly, has read them all and has a good knowledge-a reading knowledge, at least, if not yet a complete understanding-of those pronounced canonical. He will read the others more confidently when equipped with a belief in the truth; they will then be unable to take possession of his unprotected mind and prejudice him in any way against sound interpretations or delude him by their dangerous falsehoods and fantasies. In the matter of canonical scriptures he should follow the authority of as many catholic churches as possible, including of course those that were found worthy to have apostolic seats and receive apostolic letters. Twenty-five. He will apply this principle to the canonical scriptures: to prefer those accepted by all catholic churches to those which some do not accept. As for those not universally accepted, he should prefer those accepted by a majority of churches, and by the more authoritative ones, to those supported by fewer churches, or by churches of lesser authority. Should he find that some scriptures are accepted by the majority of churches, but others by the more authoritative ones (though in fact he could not possibly find this situation) I think that they should be considered to have equal authority.

Twenty-six. The complete canon of scripture, on which I say that our attention should be concentrated, includes the following books: the five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), and the single books of Joshua son of Nave and of Judges, and the little book known as Ruth, which seems to relate more to the beginning of Kings, and then the four books of Kings and the two of Chronicles, which do not follow chronologically but proceed as it were side by side with Kings. Twenty-seven. All this is historiography, which covers continuous periods and gives a chronological sequence of events. There are others, forming another sequence, not connected with either this class or each other, like Job, Tobias, Esther, Judith, and the two books of Maccabees and the two of Ezra, which rather seem to follow on from the chronologically ordered account which ends with Kings and Chronicles. Then come the prophets, including David's single book of Psalms, and three books of Solomon, namely Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. The two books entitled Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus are also said to be by Solomon, on the strength of a general similarity; but there is a strong tradition that Jesus Sirach wrote them, and, in any case, because they have been found worthy of inclusion among authoritative texts, they should be numbered with the prophetic books. Twenty-eight. There remain the books of the prophets properly so called, the individual books of the twelve prophets who because they are joined together and never separated are counted as one. Their names are these: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachariah, and Malachi. Then there are the four prophets in larger books: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel. Twenty-nine. These forty-four books form the authoritative Old Testament; the authoritative New Testament consists of the Gospel in four books (Matthew,

Mark, Luke, John), fourteen letters of the apostle Paul (Romans, Corinthians two, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Thessalonians two, Colossians, Timothy two, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews), two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude, and one of James; the single book of the Acts of the Apostles and the single book of the Revelation of John.

Thirty. These are all the books in which those who fear God and are made docile by their holiness seek God's will. The first rule in this laborious task is, as I have said, to know these books; not necessarily to understand them but to read them so as to commit them to memory or at least make them not totally unfamiliar. Then the matters which are clearly stated in them, whether ethical precepts or articles of belief, should be examined carefully and intelligently. The greater a person's intellectual capacity, the more of these he finds. Thirty-one. In clearly expressed passages of scripture one can find all the things that concern faith and the moral life (namely hope and love, treated in my previous book). Then, after gaining a familiarity with the language of the divine scriptures, one should proceed to explore and analyze the obscure passages, by taking examples from the more obvious parts to illuminate obscure expressions and by using the evidence of indisputable passages to remove the uncertainty of ambiguous ones. Here memory is extremely valuable; and it cannot be supplied by these instructions if it is lacking.

Thirty-two. There are two reasons why written texts fail to be understood: their meaning may be veiled either by unknown signs or by ambiguous signs. Signs are either literal or metaphorical. They are called literal when used to signify the things for which they were invented: so, for example, when we say bovem, meaning the animal which we and all speakers of Latin call by that name. Thirty-three. They are metaphorical when the actual things which we signify by the particular words are used to signify something else: when, for example, we say bovem and not only interpret these two syllables to mean the animal normally referred to by that name but also understand, by that animal, 'worker in the gospel', which is what scripture, as interpreted by the apostle Paul, means when it says, 'You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain'.

Thirty-four. An important antidote to the ignorance of literal signs is the knowledge of languages. Users of the Latin language-and it is these that I have now undertaken to instruct-need two others, Hebrew and Greek, for an understanding of the divine scriptures, so that recourse may be had to the original versions if any uncertainty arises from the infinite variety of Latin translators. Though we often find Hebrew words untranslated in the texts, like amen, alleluia, racha, osanna. In some cases, although they could be translated, the original form is preserved for the sake of its solemn authority (so amen, alleluia); in others, like the other two that I mentioned, they are said to be incapable of being translated into another language. Thirty-five. There are certain words in particular languages which just cannot be translated into the idioms of another language. This is especially true of interjections, which signify emotion, rather than an element of clearly conceived meaning: two such words, it is said, are racha, a word expressing anger, and osanna, a word expressing joy. Thirty-six. But it is not because of these few words, which it is easy enough to note down and ask other people about, but because of the aforementioned diversity of translators that a knowledge of languages is necessary. Translators of scripture from Hebrew into Greek can be easily counted, but not so translators into Latin, for in the early days of the faith any person who got hold of a Greek manuscript and fancied that he had some ability in the two languages went ahead and translated it. This fact actually proves more of a help to interpretation than a hindrance, provided that readers are not too casual. Obscure passages are often clarified by the inspection of several manuscripts, like the passage in Isaiah rendered by one translator as 'and do not despise the household of your own seed', but by another as 'and do not despise your own flesh'. Each one confirms the other. Thirty-eight. One is explained by the other, because 'flesh' can be taken literally-so that one may consider this a warning not to despise one's own body-and 'household of your seed' can be metaphorically understood as 'Christians', those spiritually born with us from the same seed of the word. But when the ideas of the translators are compared a more plausible idea suggests itself: that the command is literally about not despising your kinsfolk, since when you relate 'the household of your own seed' to the flesh your kinsfolk are what particularly comes to mind. This, I think, is the explanation of Paul's statement, 'If in any way I can arouse my flesh to jealousy, so that I may save some of them' (in other words, so that they too may believe by jealously emulating those who had earlier believed). Thirty-nine. By his flesh he meant the Jews, by virtue of his kinship with them. Another example, again from Isaiah: one version has 'if you do not believe, you will not understand', another has 'if you do not believe, you will not stand fast'. It is not clear which of these represents the truth unless the versions in the original language are consulted. Yet both convey something important to those who read intelligently. It is difficult to find translators who diverge so much that they do not touch at some point. Forty. So because understanding concerns the vision of eternal things, whereas faith nourishes us with milk, so to speak, while we are babies in the cradle of this temporal life, and because here and now 'we walk by faith, not sight', and because if we do not walk by faith we cannot reach that vision which is not transient but eternal, and because we hold fast to the truth through a purified understanding-that is why one version says 'if you do not believe you will not stand fast' and the other 'if you do not believe you will not understand'. Forty-one. Ambiguity in the original language often misleads a translator unfamiliar with the general sense of a passage, who may import a meaning which is quite unrelated to the writer's meaning. For example, some manuscripts have: 'their feet are sharp to shed blood' (oğÛ in Greek means both 'sharp' and 'quick'). The translator who wrote 'their feet are quick to shed blood' saw the meaning; but another was misled by the ambiguous sign and went astray. Forty-two. Any other translations of this are not obscure, but plain wrong. They differ from the preceding cases, and our advice must be not to seek an interpretation of such texts, but an emendation. Another example: because moschus is 'calf' in Greek some translators did not interpret the word moscheumata as 'plants' but translated it as 'calves'. This mistake has taken over so many manuscripts that an alternative reading is hard to find; and yet the meaning is quite obvious, because all is revealed in the words that follow. 'False plants do not put out deep roots' gives better meaning here than 'calves', which are not rooted to the earth, but walk over it with their feet! This particular translation is guaranteed by the surrounding context. Because the exact meaning which the various translators are trying to express, each according to his own ability and judgement, is not clear without an examination of the language being translated, and because a translator, unless very expert, often strays away from the author's meaning, we should aim either to acquire a knowledge of the languages from which the Latin scripture derives or to use the versions of those who keep excessively close to the literal meaning. Not that such translations are adequate, but they may be used to control the freedom or error of others who in their translations have chosen to follow the ideas rather than the words. Translators often meet not only individual words, but also whole phrases which simply cannot be expressed in the idioms of the Latin language, at least not if one wants to maintain the usage of ancient speakers of Latin. Sometimes these translations lose nothing in intelligibility but trouble those people who take more delight in things when correct usage is observed in expressing the corresponding signs. What is called a solecism is simply what results when words are not combined according to the rules by which our predecessors, who spoke with some authority, combined them. Whether you say inter homines or inter hominibus does not matter to a student intent upon things. Likewise, what is a barbarism but a word articulated with letters or sounds that are not the same as those with which it was normally articulated by those who spoke Latin before us? Whether one says ignoscere with a long or short third syllable is of little concern to someone beseeching God to forgive his sins, however he may have managed to utter the word. What, then, is correctness of speech but the maintenance of the practice of others, as established by the authority of ancient speakers? But the weaker men are, the more they are troubled by such matters. Their weakness stems from a desire to appear learned, not with a knowledge of things, by which we are edified, but with a knowledge of signs, by which it is difficult not to be puffed up in some way; even a knowledge of things often makes people boastful, unless their necks are held down by the Lord's yoke. Surely there is no obstacle to the understanding in this version: 'what is the land in which they dwell upon it, whether it is good or wicked; and what are the towns in which they themselves live in them?' I judge this to be the idiom of a foreign language rather than a particularly profound idea. And the version which we are now unable to remove from the mouths of our singing congregations-'over him my sanctification will flourish'- certainly loses none of the meaning. A more educated listener would prefer it to be corrected (by saying florebit, not floriet), and the only obstacle to this correction is the habit of those who sing it. So such matters can readily be ignored if one has no desire to avoid expressions which do not in any way detract from a sound understanding. But now take the apostolic saying, 'The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God stronger than men'. Suppose that someone wished to keep the Greek expression, with hominum in place of hominibus: the mind of the alert reader would still get to the truth of the statement, but the less quick-witted reader would either fail to understand it or understand it wrongly. Such an expression is not just faulty Latin; it is potentially ambiguous, if it gives the impression that man's foolishness is wiser, and man's weakness stronger, than God's. But the alternative sapientius est hominibus, though free of solecism, is not free of ambiguity: it is not clear, except in the light of the context, whether it is the plural of huic homini or hoc homine. A better version would be sapientius est quam homines or fortius est quam homines. I shall speak later about ambiguous signs; now I am dealing with unfamiliar ones, of which there are two kinds, as far as words are concerned. A reader may be perplexed by either an unfamiliar word or an unfamiliar expression. If they come from other languages the information must be sought from speakers of those languages, or else the languages must be learnt (if time and ability allow), or else a collection of several translations must be consulted. If we are unfamiliar with some words and expressions in our own language, they become known to us by the process of reading and listening. Nothing should be committed to memory more urgently than unfamiliar kinds of words and expressions; so that when we meet a knowledgeable person whom we can ask, or a similar expression which makes clear from the passages which precede and follow it, or both, what is the force or significance of the unfamiliar word, we can easily make a note of it, or find out about it, with the help of our memory. (Yet such is the force of habit, even in learning, that those who are nourished and educated in the holy scriptures are more surprised by expressions from elsewhere, and regard them as worse Latin than the ones which they have learnt in scripture but are not found in Latin literature.) In this area too it is very helpful to collect manuscripts and examine and discuss a number of translations. But inaccuracy must be excluded, for the attention of those who wish to know the divine scripture must first focus on the task of correcting the manuscripts, so that uncorrected ones give place to corrected ones, assuming that they belong to the same class of translation. Among actual translations the Itala should be preferred to all others, as it keeps more closely to the words without sacrificing clarity of expression. To correct any Latin manuscripts Greek ones should be used: among these, as far as the Old Testament is concerned, the authority of the Septuagint is supreme. Its seventy writers are now claimed in all the more informed churches to have performed their task of translation with such strong guidance from the Holy Spirit that this great number of men spoke with but a single voice. If, as is generally held, and indeed asserted by many who are not unworthy of belief, each one of these wrote his translation alone in an individual cell and nothing was found in anyone's version which was not found, in the same words and the same order of words, in the others, who would dare to adapt such an authoritative work, let alone adopt anything in preference to it? But if in fact they joined forces so as to achieve unanimity by open discussion and joint decision, even so it would not be right or proper for any one person, however expert, to think of correcting a version agreed by so many experienced scholars. Therefore, even if we find in the Hebrew versions something that differs from what they wrote, I believe that we should defer to the divine dispensation which was made through them so that the books which the Jewish race refused to reveal to other peoples (whether out of religious scruple or envy) might be revealed, through the mediating power of King Ptolemy, well in advance to the peoples that were destined to believe through our Lord. It may indeed be the case that they translated in a way that the Holy Spirit, who was leading them and creating unanimity, judged appropriate to the Gentiles. But, as I said above, the comparison of translations which have kept more closely to the words is often not without its value in explaining a passage. So, as I said to begin with, Latin manuscripts of the Old Testament should be corrected if necessary by authoritative Greek ones, and especially by the version of the scholars who though seventy in number are said to have been unanimous. The Latin manuscripts of the New Testament, if there is any uncertainty in the various Latin versions, should without doubt give place to Greek ones, especially those found in the more learned and diligent churches. As for metaphorical signs, any unfamiliar ones which make the reader puzzled must be examined partly through a knowledge of languages, and partly through a knowledge of things. There is a figurative significance and certainly some hidden meaning conveyed by the episode of the pool of Siloam, where the man who had his eyes anointed by the Lord with mud made from spittle was ordered to wash his face. If the evangelist had not explained this name from an unfamiliar language, this important meaning would have remained hidden. So too many of the Hebrew names not explained by the authors of these books undoubtedly have considerable significance and much help to give in solving the mysteries of the scriptures, if they can be explained at all. Various experts in this language have rendered no small service to posterity by explaining all these individual words from the scriptures and giving the meaning of the names Adam, Eve, Abraham, and Moses, and of place-names such as Jerusalem, Zion, Jericho, Sinai, Lebanon, Jordan, and any other names in that language that are unfamiliar to us. Once these are clarified and explained many figurative expressions in scripture become quite clear. Ignorance of things makes figurative expressions unclear when we are ignorant of the qualities of animals or stones or plants or other things mentioned in scripture for the sake of some analogy. The well-known fact about the snake, that it offers its whole body to assailants in place of its head, marvellously illustrates the meaning of the Lord's injunction to be as wise as serpents, which means that in place of our head, which is Christ, we should offer our body to persecutors, so that the Christian faith is not as it were killed within us when we spare our body and deny God. Sixty. And the fact that a snake confined in its narrow lair puts off its old garment and is said to take on new strength chimes in excellently with the idea of imitating the serpent's astuteness and putting off the old man (to use the words of the apostle) in order to put on the new, and also with that of doing so in a confined place, for the Lord said 'enter by the narrow gate'. Just as a knowledge of the habits of the snake clarifies the many analogies involving this animal regularly given in scripture, so too an ignorance of the numerous animals mentioned no less frequently in an analogy is a great hindrance to understanding. The same is true of stones, herbs, and anything that has roots. Sixty-one. Even a knowledge of the carbuncle, a stone which shines in the dark, explains many obscure passages in scripture where it is used in an analogy; and ignorance of the beryl and adamant often closes the door to understanding. It is easy to understand that perpetual peace is signified by the olive branch brought by the dove when it returned to the ark, simply because we know that the smooth surface of oil is not easily broken by another liquid and also that the tree itself is in leaf all year round. And because of their ignorance about hyssop many people, unaware of its power to cleanse the lungs or even (so it is said) to split rocks with its roots, in spite of its low and humble habit, are quite unable to discover why it is said, 'You will purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean'. Sixty-two. An unfamiliarity with numbers makes unintelligible many things that are said figuratively and mystically in scripture. An intelligent intellect (if I may put it thus) cannot fail to be intrigued by the meaning of the fact that Moses and Elijah and the Lord himself fasted for forty days. The knotty problem of the figurative significance of this event cannot be solved except by understanding and considering the number, which comprises four times ten, and signifies the knowledge of all things woven into the temporal order. Sixty-three. The courses of the day and the year are based on the number four: the day is divided into the hours of morning, afternoon, evening, and night, the year into the months of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. While we live in the temporal order, we must fast and abstain from the enjoyment of what is temporal, for the sake of the eternity in which we desire to live, but it is actually the passage of time by which the lesson of despising the temporal and seeking the eternal is brought home to us. Sixty-four. Then the number ten signifies the knowledge of the creator and creation: the Trinity is the number of the creator, while the number seven symbolizes the creation because it represents life and the body. The former has three elements (hence the precept that God must be loved with the whole heart, the whole soul, and the whole mind), and as for the body, the four elements of which it consists are perfectly obvious. To live soberly according to this significance of the number ten-conveyed to us temporally (hence the multiplication by four)-and abstain from the pleasures of this world, this is the significance of the forty-day fast. Sixty-five. This is enjoined by the law, as represented by Moses, by prophecy, as represented by Elijah, and by the Lord himself, who, to symbolize that he enjoyed the testimony of the law and the prophets, shone out in the midst of them on the mountain as the three amazed disciples looked on. In the same way a solution may be found to explain how the number fifty, which enjoys particular authority in our religion because of Pentecost, comes from the number forty, and how, when it is multiplied by three-either because of the three eras (before the law, under the law, under grace) or because of the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit-and with the conspicuous addition of the Trinity, refers to the mystery of the fully purified church, matching the one hundred fifty-three fishes that were caught in the nets cast on the right-hand side of the boat after the Lord's resurrection. In this way, expressed in a variety of numbers, there are in the sacred books certain abstruse analogies which are inaccessible to readers without a knowledge of number. Sixty-six. Many passages are also made inaccessible and opaque by an ignorance of music. It has been elegantly demonstrated that there are some figurative illustrations of things based on the difference between the psaltery and the lyre. It is a matter of dispute among experts, not unreasonably, whether the psaltery of ten strings embodies some musical principle which obliges it to have this number of strings, or whether, if this is not so, the number should for that reason be understood rather in a special religious sense, either in terms of the decalogue (and if that number is investigated, it can only be related to the creator and the creation), or in terms of the number ten itself as expounded above. Sixty-seven. The number of years given in the gospel for the building of the temple (forty-six) has some musical overtones, and when related to the constitution of the Lord's body-which is why the temple was mentioned-compels numerous heretics to admit that the Son of God took on a real human body, not an insubstantial one. Indeed we find both number and music mentioned with respect in several places in the holy scriptures. Sixty-eight. But we must not listen to the fictions of pagan superstition, which have represented the nine Muses as the daughters of Jupiter and Memory. They were refuted by Varro, a man whose erudition and thirst for knowledge could not, I think, be surpassed among pagans. He says that a certain town (I forget its name) placed contracts with three workmen for three sets of images of the Muses to be set up as an offering in Apollo's temple, intending to select and buy those of the sculptor who produced the most attractive ones. Sixty-nine. It so happened that the workmen's products were equally attractive, and the town selected all nine and they were all bought for dedication in Apollo's temple. He adds that the poet Hesiod later gave them names. So Jupiter did not beget the nine Muses, but they were made by three sculptors, three apiece. Seventy. And the town had placed contracts for three not because they had seen them in a dream or because that number had appeared before the eyes of one of its citizens, but because it was a simple matter to observe that all sound, which is the essence of music, is naturally threefold. A sound is either produced by the voice, as by those who make music with their mouths, without a musical instrument, or by breath, as with trumpets and flutes, or by percussion, as in the case of lyres, drums, or anything else which resonates when struck. 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 from it something of value for understanding holy scripture. Nor, on the other hand, should we be captivated by the vanities of the theatre if we are discussing something to do with lyres or other instruments that may help us appreciate spiritual truths. Seventy-two. We were not wrong to learn the alphabet just because they say that the god Mercury was its patron, nor should we avoid justice and virtue just because they dedicated temples to justice and virtue and preferred to honour these values not in their minds, but in the form of stones. A person who is a good and a true Christian should realize that truth belongs to his Lord, wherever it is found, gathering and acknowledging it even in pagan literature, but rejecting superstitious vanities and deploring and avoiding those who 'though they knew God did not glorify him as God or give thanks but became enfeebled in their own thoughts and plunged their senseless minds into darkness. Claiming to be wise they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the image of corruptible mortals and animals and reptiles.' But to analyse this whole matter more closely-and it is something of the greatest importance-there are two kinds of learning pursued even in pagan society. One comprises things which have been instituted by humans, the other things already developed, or divinely instituted, which have been observed by them. Of those instituted by humans, some are superstitious, some not. Something instituted by humans is superstitious if it concerns the making and worshipping of idols, or the worshipping of the created order or part of it as if it were God, or if it involves certain kinds of consultations or contracts about meaning arranged and ratified with demons, such as the enterprises involved in the art of magic, which poets tend to mention rather than to teach. From this category-only their vanity is even more reckless-come the books of haruspices and augurs. To this category belong all the amulets and remedies which the medical profession also condemns, whether these consist of incantations, or certain marks which their exponents call 'characters', or the business of hanging certain things up and tying things to other things, or even somehow making things dance. The purpose of these practices is not to heal the body, but to establish certain secret or even overt meanings. They call these 'physical' matters, using this bland name to give the impression that they do not involve a person in superstition but are by nature beneficial. So, for example, ear-rings on the tip of one ear, or rings of ostrich bone on the fingers, or the advice given you when hiccuping to hold your left thumb with your right hand. Besides all this there are thousands of utterly futile practices-do this if a part of your body suddenly twitches, do that if a stone or a dog or a slave comes between you and a friend as you walk together. The habit of treading on a stone as if it were a threat to one's friendship is less offensive than cuffing an innocent boy who happens to run between people walking together. But it is nice to record that such boys are sometimes avenged by dogs: some people are so superstitious that they go as far as striking a dog who comes between them, but they do so to their cost, because as a result of this inane remedy the dog sometimes sends its assailant straight to a real doctor. Other examples are these: treading on the threshold when you pass in front of your own house; going back to bed if you sneeze while putting on your shoes; returning inside your house if you trip up while leaving it; or, when your clothing is eaten by mice, worrying more about the premonition of future disaster than about the present damage. Cato had a witty saying about this: when approached by someone who said that mice had been nibbling his slippers he replied that this was not an omen, but would certainly have been if the slippers had been nibbling the mice. We must not omit from this category of deadly superstition the people called genethliaci because of their study of natal days, or now in common parlance mathematici (astrologers). Although they investigate the true position of the stars at a person's birth and sometimes actually succeed in working it out, the fact that they use it to try to predict our activities and the consequences of these activities is a grave error and amounts to selling uneducated people into a wretched form of slavery. When free people go to see such an astrologer,

they pay money for the privilege of coming away as slaves of Mars or Venus, or rather all the stars to which those who first made this error and then offered it to posterity gave either the names of animals, because they resembled animals, or the names of people, in order to honour particular people. It is no surprise that even in relatively recent times the Romans tried to consecrate the star we call Lucifer in the name of, and in honour of, Caesar. And indeed this might have been done, and become sanctified by tradition, had not Venus his ancestress, though she had never possessed it or even sought to possess it in her lifetime, already taken the name, like a piece of property, and did not transfer it in any legal way to her heirs. For when a title was vacant, and not held in the name of any previous deceased, the usual practice was followed. We call the months July and August after the human beings Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar, and not by their old names of Quinctilis and Sextilis. So it is easy for anyone who so wishes to understand that those planets too previously moved in the sky without their present names, but that when people died whose memory the populace was compelled by royal power, or disposed by human vanity, to honour they gave the names of the deceased to the heavenly bodies and fancied that they were raising to heaven people who as far as they themselves were concerned were dead. But whatever men may call them, the heavenly bodies, which God made and arranged as he wished, certainly exist, and have fixed orbits from which the seasons derive their differences and variations. It is easy to record the details of these orbits when a person is born, according to the rules which they have invented and codified. Holy scripture condemns them when it says, 'For if they were able to know so much that they could judge the world, how is it that they did not discover its Lord more easily?' But the idea of using this data to predict the character and future actions and experiences of the new-born is a great mistake, and indeed great folly. To those who have learnt that such things are better unlearned this superstition is without the slightest doubt invalid. (In what follows constellations is their name for the diagrams of the positions occupied by the stars at the birth of the person about whom these wretched people are consulted by people even more wretched.) Now it can happen that some twins follow one another so closely out of the womb that no interval of time can be perceived between them and recorded in terms of constellations. It follows that some twins have the same constellations, and yet their actions and experiences turn out to be not the same but often quite different. One may live to be blissfully happy, the other to be desperately unhappy, like Esau and Jacob who, we are told, were born as twins with Jacob, the second to be born, holding in his hand the foot of his brother born before him. The day and hour of these births, certainly, could only have been recorded in terms of a single constellation common to both. But the vast difference between the two in terms of character and achievement, suffering and success, is attested by scripture and is now common knowledge among all peoples. It is not pertinent to say, as they do, that the small interval, the tiny fraction of time that separates the birth of twins is of great significance in view of the nature of the universe and the great speed of the heavenly bodies. Even if I conceded that it was of the utmost significance, it would still not be discoverable by the astrologer in the constellations from which he claims to make predictions. Since he cannot trace it in his constellations, which when examined are bound to be identical, whether he is consulted about Jacob or about his brother, what use is it to him if there is a difference in the heavens, which he thoughtlessly and casually belittles, but no difference in his diagram, which he earnestly and pointlessly beholds? So these ideas too, because they involve signs instituted by human presumption, must be classed among those contracts and agreements made with devils. In this way it happens that, by some inscrutable divine plan, those who have a desire for evil things are handed over to be deluded and deceived according to what their own wills deserve. They are deluded and deceived by corrupt angels, to whom in God's most excellent scheme of things this lowest part of the world has been subjected by the decree of divine providence. As a result of these delusions and deceptions it has come about that these superstitious and deadly kinds of divination actually do tell of past and future things, which happen exactly as predicted; many things happen to observers in accordance with their observations, so that as they are caught up in them they may become ever more inquisitive and entrap themselves more and more in the manifold snares of this most deadly error. This is a kind of spiritual fornication, and in the interests of spiritual health scripture has not failed to mention it. It did not warn the soul by forbidding the practice of these things on the grounds that its teachers utter falsehoods; it has actually said, 'If they tell you and it happens in that way, do not trust them'. The fact that the ghost of the dead Samuel prophesied the truth to King Saul does not make the wickedness of summoning that ghost any less abhorrent. Nor did the fact that a soothsayer bore true testimony to the Lord's apostles lead Paul to spare that spirit rather than cleanse the woman by rebuking the demon and driving it out. So all the specialists in this kind of futile and harmful superstition, and the contracts, as it were, of an untrustworthy and treacherous partnership established by this disastrous alliance of men and devils, must be totally rejected and avoided by the Christian. 'It is not', to quote the apostle, 'because an idol is something, but because whatever they sacrifice they sacrifice it to devils and not to God that I do not want you to become the associates of demons.' What the apostle said about idols and the sacrifices made in their honour must guide our attitude to all these fanciful signs which draw people to the worship of idols or to the worship of the created order or any parts of it as if they were God, or which relate to this obsession with remedies and other such practices. They are not publicly promulgated by God in order to foster the love of God and one's neighbour, but they consume the hearts of wretched mortals by fostering selfish desires for temporal things. So in all these teachings we must fear and avoid this alliance with demons, whose whole aim, in concert with their leader, the devil, is to cut off and obstruct our return to God. Just as there are deceptive human ideas of human origin about the stars, which God created and ordered, so there are many ideas, committed to paper by many writers, apparently derived systematically from human surmises, about everything which is born or somehow comes into being by the workings of divine providence-I mean things which happen abnormally, like a mule giving birth or something being struck by lightning. The influence of all these things varies in proportion to the extent of the agreement with demons achieved by presumptuous minds through such kinds of common language. But they are all brimful of dangerous curiosity, agonising worry, and deadly bondage. They were not observed as a result of their influence, but they gained their influence as a result of being observed and recorded. This is how they came to have different effects on different people, according to their particular thoughts and fancies. Spirits who wish to deceive someone devise appropriate signs for each individual to match those in which they see him caught up through his speculations and the conventions he accepts. So by way of example the single letter which is written like a cross means one thing to Greeks and another to Latin-speakers, and has meaning not by nature but by agreement and convention; therefore a person who knows both languages does not, if he wants to say something in writing to a Greek, write that letter with the same meaning as it has when he writes to a Latin speaker. And the word beta, consisting of the same sounds in both languages, is the name of a letter in Greek, but a vegetable in Latin. When I say lege a Greek understands one thing by these two syllables, but a Latin-speaker something else. All these meanings, then, derive their effect on the mind from each individual's agreement with a particular convention. As this agreement varies, so does their effect. People did not agree to use them because they were already meaningful; rather they became meaningful because people agreed to use them. Likewise the signs by which this deadly agreement with demons is achieved have an effect that is in proportion to each individual's attention to them. This is clearly demonstrated by the practice of augurs, who, both before and after making their observations, deliberately avoid seeing birds in flight or hearing their cries, because these signs are null and void unless accompanied by the observer's agreement. Having eliminated and uprooted these things from the Christian mind we must in turn consider those human institutions which are not superstitious, that is, ones established not with demons but with men. All things which are meaningful to humans just because humans have decided that they should be so, are human institutions. Some of them are superfluous and self-indulgent, others are useful and necessary. Ninety-seven. If the signs made by actors while dancing were naturally meaningful, rather than meaningful as a result of human institution and agreement, an announcer would not have indicated to the Carthaginians, as each actor danced, what the dance meant, as he did in earlier days. Many old men still remember this, and we often hear them talking about it. It is quite credible, for even now if a person unfamiliar with these frivolities goes to the theatre his rapt attention to them is pointless unless someone tells him what the movements mean. Ninety-eight. Yet everyone aims at some degree of similarity when they use signs, making signs as similar as possible to the things which are signified. But because one thing can be similar to another in many ways, these signs are not generally understood unless accompanied by agreement. Ninety-nine. In the case of pictures and statues and other such representations, especially those made by experienced artists, nobody who sees the representation fails to recognize the things which they resemble. This whole category should be classed among superfluous human institutions, except when it makes a difference why or where or when or by whose authority one of them is made. Finally, the thousands of fictional stories and romances, which through their falsehoods give people great pleasure, are human institutions. Indeed, nothing should be thought more peculiar to mankind than lies and falsehoods, which derive exclusively from mankind itself. One hundred. But there are useful and necessary institutions, established with men by men; such things as the conventional differences in dress and in adornment of the body, designed to distinguish sex or rank, and countless kinds of coded meanings without which society would function less smoothly, or not at all, and everything in the realm of weights and measures, coinage, and currency, which are peculiar to individual states and peoples, and so on. If these were not human institutions they would not differ between different peoples, nor would they be subject to change at the whim of the authorities in each country. One hundred one. This whole area of human institutions which contribute to the necessities of life should in no way be avoided by the Christian; indeed, within reason, they should be studied and committed to memory.

One hundred two. There are some human institutions which are modelled on natural ones or at any rate similar to them. Those which involve an alliance with demons are, as I have said, to be completely rejected and abhorred, but those which men practise along with their fellow-men are to be adopted, in so far as they are not self-indulgent and superfluous. This applies especially to the letters of the alphabet, without which reading would be impossible, and up to a point to the multiplicity of languages, which I discussed above. One hundred three. In this category, too, are the symbols of shorthand, learnt by those who are now properly known as stenographers. These are useful, and it is not wrong to learn them; they do not involve us in superstition or undermine us with self-indulgence, provided that limited time is spent on them and that they do not become an obstacle to the more important things which they should help us to obtain. One hundred four. Now those elements of human tradition which men did not establish but discovered by investigation, whether they were enacted in time or instituted by God, should not be considered human institutions, no matter where they are learnt. Some of these concern the physical senses, others concern the mind. The former we either take on trust when they are told to us, or understand when they are demonstrated, or infer when they are experienced. One hundred five. Whatever the subject called history reveals about the train of past events is of the greatest assistance in interpreting the holy books, even if learnt outside the church as part of primary education. Many problems are often investigated by us using Olympiads and the names of consuls. Ignorance of the consulships in which the Lord was born and died has led many to the erroneous idea that the Lord suffered at the age of forty-six, because it was said by the Jews that their temple, which represented the Lord's body, was built in forty-six years. One hundred six. We have it on the authority of the gospel that he was baptized at the age of about thirty; the number of years that he lived after that could be inferred from the pattern of his activities, but is in fact more clearly and reliably established, beyond any shadow of doubt, by a comparison of secular history with the gospel. It will then be seen that there was some point in the statement that the temple was built in forty-six years: since the number cannot be explained in terms of the Lord's age, it must be explained as an abstruse lesson about the human body, which the only son of God, by whom everything was made, did not disdain to put on for our sake. One hundred seven. On the usefulness of history-leaving aside Greek scholars-I cite the major problem which was solved by my good friend Ambrose. A scandalous accusation was levelled by readers and admirers of Plato, who had the nerve to say that our Lord Jesus Christ had learnt all his ideas-which they cannot but marvel at and proclaim-from the works of Plato, since, undeniably, he lived long before our Lord's coming in the flesh. One hundred eight. After examining secular history the aforementioned bishop discovered that Plato went to Egypt, where the prophet then was, at the time of Jeremiah, and demonstrated that it was surely more likely that Plato had been introduced to our literature by Jeremiah, and that it was this that enabled him to learn and write the things for which he is justly praised. In fact the literature of the Hebrew race, in which monotheism first made its appearance, and from which our Lord came according to the flesh, was not preceded even by Pythagoras, from whose followers they claim that Plato learnt his theology. So as a result of studying the chronology it is much easier to believe that the pagans took everything that is good and true in their writings from our literature than that the Lord Jesus Christ took his from Plato-a quite crazy idea. One hundred nine. Historical narrative also describes human institutions of the past, but it should not for that reason itself be counted among human institutions. For what has already gone into the past and cannot be undone must be considered part of the history of time, whose creator and controller is God. There is a difference between describing what has been done and describing what must be done. History relates past events in a faithful and useful way, whereas the books of haruspices and similar literature set out to teach things to be performed or observed, and offer impertinent advice, not reliable information. One hundred ten. There is also a kind of narration akin to demonstration, by which things in the present, and not the past, are communicated to people unfamiliar with them. In this category are various studies of topography and zoology, and of trees, plants,

stones, and other such things. I have dealt with this category earlier and explained that such knowledge is valuable in solving puzzles in scripture, but is not to be used in place of certain signs to provide the remedies or devices of some superstition. I distinguished this category too from the one that is lawful and open to Christians. For it is one thing to say, 'if you drink this plant in powdered form your stomach will stop hurting', and another to say, 'if you hang this plant round your neck your stomach will stop hurting'. In the one case the health-giving mixture is commendable, in the other the superstitious meaning is damnable. But in the absence of incantations or invocations or 'characters' it is often doubtful whether the thing tied on or attached in some way for healing the body works by nature-in which case it may be used freely-or succeeds by virtue of some meaningful association; in this case, the more effectively it appears to heal, the more a Christian should be on guard. Where the explanation of its power is not apparent, it is the attitude of the user that matters, as far as physical healing or treatment, whether in medicine or in agriculture, is concerned. In astronomy-scripture mentions just a few things here-we have a case not of narration but demonstration. The orbit of the moon, which is regularly used to fix the annual celebration of our Lord's passion, is familiar to very many people, but very few have infallible knowledge about the rising or setting or any other movements of the other heavenly bodies. In itself, this knowledge, although not implicating one in superstition, does not give much help-almost none, in fact-in interpreting the divine scripture and is really more of a hindrance, since it demands the fruitless expenditure of effort. Because it is akin to the deadly error of those who prophesy fatuously about fate, it is more convenient and honourable to despise it. But as well as the demonstration of things in the present it has something in common with narration of the past, because one may systematically argue from the present position and movement of the stars to their courses in the past. It also makes possible systematic predictions about the future, which are not speculative and conjectural but firm and certain; but we should not try to extract something of relevance to our own actions and experiences, like the maniacs who cast horoscopes, but confine our interest to the stars themselves. Just as someone who studies the moon can say, after examining how large it is today, how large it was so many years ago, or how large it will be in so many years' time, so in the same way skilled astronomers have learnt to pronounce about each of the stars. I have now explained my position on this whole subject, as far as its practical uses are concerned. In the case of the other arts, by which something is manufactured, whether it be an artefact that remains after a craftsman has worked on it (like a house or a stool or a vessel of some kind, and so on), or whether they provide some service for God to work with (like medicine, agriculture, or navigation), or whether the whole end product consists in action (as in dancing, running, and wrestling)-in all these arts knowledge gained from past experiences causes future ones to be inferred. None of these craftsmen moves a muscle at his work except to link his experience of the past with his plans for the future. In human life knowledge of these things is to be used sparingly and in passing, and not in order to make things-unless a particular task demands it, which is not my concern now-but to assist our judgement, so that we are not entirely unaware of what scripture wishes to convey when it includes figurative expressions based on these arts. That leaves subjects which concern not the physical senses but mental reasoning. Dominant here are the subjects of logic and number, but logic is of paramount importance in understanding and resolving all kinds of problems in the sacred texts. But one must beware of indulging a passion for wrangling and making a puerile show of skill in trapping an opponent. There are many 'sophisms', as they are called, or invalid deductions, framed as a rule in the guise of valid ones, designed to trap not just dull people but also clever ones who are less than consistently alert. The following proposition was put by X to Y: 'You are not what I am.' Y agreed; that was, after all, true up to a point, or else Y was being simple-minded because of X's deviousness. X added, 'I am a man', and when Y granted this too, he concluded 'Therefore you are not a man'. This kind of captious argument is, in my opinion, deplored by scripture in the passage where it says 'The person who speaks sophistically is odious'. There are also such things as valid logical syllogisms based on false statements, which attack a mistake made by an opponent. But these are advanced by honest and clever people to embarrass the person whom they are seeking to attack and make him abandon his misconception, by showing that if he chooses to stick to it he is logically compelled to uphold what he condemns. The apostle Paul was not advancing true statements when he said, 'neither did Christ rise', and 'our preaching is in vain', and 'your faith is in vain', and then other things, which are completely false; because Christ did rise, and the preaching of those who reported this was not in vain, nor was the faith of those who had believed it. But these falsehoods were deduced quite validly from the proposition that there is no resurrection of the dead. Because these propositions were true if it is the case that the dead do not rise, the resurrection of the dead will follow when these falsehoods are refuted. There are, then, valid syllogisms based not only on true propositions but also on false ones; it is easy to learn which of them are valid even in schools outside the church. But the truth of propositions must be sought in the church's holy books. The validity of syllogisms is not something instituted by humans, but observed and recorded by them, so that the subject may be taught or learnt. It is built into the permanent and divinely instituted system of things. The historian does not himself produce the sequence of events which he narrates, and the writer on topography or zoology or roots or stones does not present things instituted by humans, and the astronomer who points out the heavenly bodies and their movements does not point out something instituted by himself or any other person; likewise the logician who says 'since the consequent is false, the antecedent must be false' may be saying something perfectly true, but does not himself make it true, for he only points out the truth of it. The above quoted text of Paul is an instance of this rule; for the antecedent was that there is no resurrection of the dead, as claimed by those whose error the apostle wanted to demolish. From that antecedent, by which they maintained that there was no resurrection of the dead, the statement 'nor did Christ rise' logically follows. But that conclusion is false, since Christ did rise; so the antecedent too is false. The antecedent was that there is no resurrection of the dead; therefore there is a resurrection of the dead. One hundred twenty-three. All of which may be put briefly like this: if there is no resurrection of the dead, Christ did not rise either; but Christ did rise, so there is a resurrection of the dead. This fact, then—that by refuting the consequent you necessarily refute the antecedent too—was not instituted but pointed out by man. This rule relates to the validity of deductions, and not to the truth of propositions.

One hundred twenty-four. But in this last statement about the resurrection, the logical deduction was valid, and the actual proposition expressed in the conclusion was true. There may, however, be a valid deduction using false propositions, as in the following example. Suppose someone granted that 'if a snail is an animal, it has a voice'. With this granted, it is then shown that a snail does not have a voice, and the deduction made—because when a conclusion is refuted the antecedent is also refuted—that a snail is not an animal. This proposition is false, but validly derived from the false premiss that was granted. One hundred twenty-five. So whereas the truth of a proposition holds good through itself alone, the truth-value of a syllogistic conclusion is established from what the disputant believes or concedes. This explains why, as I said before, a false proposition is introduced in a valid process of reasoning to make the person whose error we wish to correct ashamed to have held opinions with consequences that he can see must be rejected. It is now easy to understand that there can be invalid deductions from true statements, just as there are valid ones from false statements. Suppose that someone put the proposition, 'if X is just, he is good', and that this was granted; that he then said, 'but X is not just', and then, with that granted, added the conclusion 'so X is not good'.

One hundred twenty-seven. Even if all these statements were true, the deduction is not valid. For although it is necessarily the case that an antecedent is refuted by the refutation of the consequent, it is not the case that a consequent is refuted by the refutation of an antecedent. It is correct to say 'If he is an orator, he is a man', but if you then add the minor premiss, 'he is not an orator', it will not follow that 'he is not therefore a man'. So knowing the rules of valid deduction is not the same thing as knowing the truth of propositions. In logic one learns about valid and invalid inference, and contradiction. A valid inference is 'if he is an orator he is a man'; an invalid one is 'if he is a man, he is an orator'; a contradictory one is 'if he is a man, he is a quadruped'. In these cases a judgement is made about the actual deduction. On the other hand, where the truth of propositions is concerned, it is the actual propositions in themselves, not their logical relationships, that need to be examined. But when uncertain propositions are combined with true and certain ones in a valid process of reasoning, it necessarily follows that they too become certain.

One hundred thirty-four. But it is usually the case that people develop the skills which the learning of these details is meant to develop more easily than they pick up the tortuous and rebarbative lessons of their teachers. It is as if someone who wanted to give rules about walking were to tell you that your back foot should not be raised until you have put down your front foot, and then describe in minute detail how you should move the joints of your limbs and knees. He would be right; walking in any other way is impossible. But people find it easier to walk by actually doing these things than by paying attention to them as they do them or by assimilating rules when they hear them. One hundred thirty-five. Those who are unable to walk pay much less heed to instructions which they cannot follow in practice. Similarly, a clever person is as a rule quicker to see that a conclusion is invalid than to understand the relevant rules; the dull person fails to see it, but has even less chance of understanding the rules. In all these matters it is often true that the pleasure derived from the open display of truth is greater than the assistance gained from discussing or examining it, though indeed these things can sharpen the intellect, which is a good thing provided that they do not also make people more mischievous or conceited or, in other words, more inclined to deceive others by plausible talk and questioning or to think that by learning these things they have done something marvellous which entitles them to consider themselves superior to sincere and unsophisticated people. As for the study of number, it is surely clear even to the dullest person that it was not instituted by men, but rather investigated and discovered. Vergil wanted the first vowel of Italia-traditionally pronounced short-to be long, and made it long; but nobody can bring it about by willing it that three threes are not nine, or that they fail to make a squared number, or that the number nine is not thrice three, or one and a half times six, or twice ... no number (for odd numbers are not divisible by two). So whether numbers are considered purely as numbers or used in accordance with the laws that govern figures or sounds or other kinds of motion, they have fixed rules, which were not in any way instituted by human beings but discovered by the intelligence of human brains. Some people take such delight in all this that they like to boast among the unlearned instead of asking why the things which they simply perceive to be true actually are true, or why things that are not only true but also unchangeable (as they have understood them to be) actually are unchangeable; nor do they, as they come from the visible and physical to the human mind and find this too to be changeable-because it is now clever, now not, being placed between the unchangeable truth above them and the changeable things below them-relate all these things to the praise and love of God, realizing that it is from him that all things have their existence. Such people may seem learned, but are in no way wise. So it seems to me that the following advice is beneficial for young people who are keen and intelligent, who fear God and seek a life of true happiness. Do not venture without due care into any branches of learning which are pursued outside the church of Christ, as if they were a means to attaining the happy life, but discriminate sensibly and carefully between them. Those that are found to be of human institution-these come in many forms, because of the many different aims of those who instituted them, but offer little certainty, because of the speculative ideas of fallible people which underlie them-should be entirely repudiated and treated with disgust, especially if they involve an alliance with demonic powers established through a sort of contract or agreement to use particular esoteric meanings. Keep away too from the unnecessary and self-indulgent institutions of mankind, but in view of the demands of this present life do not neglect the human institutions vital to the cohesion of society. As for the other branches of learning found in pagan society, apart from the study of things past or present which concern the bodily senses (including the productions and experimentations of the practical arts) and the sciences of logic and number, I consider nothing useful here. In all these subjects the watch-word must be 'nothing in excess', and nowhere more so than in those which concern the bodily senses and are subject to time or restricted in space. Some scholars have made separate studies of all the words and names in Hebrew, Syriac, Egyptian, or any other language found in the holy scriptures, that are used without any interpretation; Eusebius made a separate study of chronology, because of the problems in the divine books which require its application. They did this in these specialized areas to save the Christian student a lot of bother over a few details. In the same way I can see the possibility that if someone suitably qualified were interested in devoting a generous amount of time to the good of his brethren he could compile a monograph classifying and setting out all the places, animals, plants, and trees, or the stones and metals, and all the other unfamiliar kinds of object mentioned in scripture. It might also be possible to put together an explanatory account of numbers, confined to numbers mentioned in the divine scripture. Perhaps indeed some or all of this has already been done; I have come across much information on which I did not realize that good and learned Christians had done research or written books. These things tend to remain unknown, whether because the bulk of scholars neglect them, or because jealous ones conceal them. Whether the same can be done for logic, I do not know. I rather think not, because logic permeates the whole body of scripture, rather like a network of muscles, and so is of more help to the reader in resolving and revealing ambiguities- of which I will speak later than in understanding unfamiliar signs, which is my present concern. Any statements by those who are called philosophers, especially the Platonists, which happen to be true and consistent with our 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, who possessed not only idols and heavy burdens which the people of Israel hated and shunned but also vessels and ornaments of silver and gold, and clothes, which on leaving Egypt the people of Israel, in order to make better use of them, surreptitiously claimed for themselves (they did this not on their own authority but at God's command, and the Egyptians in their ignorance actually gave them the things of which they had made poor use)institutions, but those appropriate to human society, which in this life we cannot do without-this may be accepted and kept for conversion to Christian purposes. One hundred forty-six. This is exactly what many good and faithful Christians have done. We can see, can we not, the amount of gold, silver, and clothing with which Cyprian, that most attractive writer and most blessed martyr, was laden when he left Egypt; is not the same true of Lactantius, and Victorinus, of Optatus, and Hilary, to say nothing of people still alive, and countless Greek scholars? This is what had been done earlier by Moses himself, that most faithful servant of God, of whom it is written that he was trained in 'all the wisdom of the Egyptians'. One hundred forty-seven. Pagan society, riddled with superstition, would never have given to all these men the arts which it considered useful-least of all at a time when it was trying to shake off the yoke of Christ and persecuting Christians-if it had suspected that they would be adapted to the purpose of worshipping the one God, by whom the worship of idols would be eradicated. But they did give their gold and silver and clothing to God's people as it left Egypt, little knowing that the things they were giving away would be put back into the service of Christ. The event narrated in Exodus was certainly a figure, and this is what it foreshadowed. I say this without prejudice to any other interpretation of equal or greater importance. One hundred forty-eight. As students of the divine scriptures, equipped in this way, begin to approach the task of studying them in detail, they must ponder incessantly this phrase of the apostle Paul: 'knowledge puffs up, but love builds up'. In this way, even if they leave Egypt well provided for, they realize that without first observing the passover they cannot be saved. Now 'Christ our Passover has been sacrificed'; the sacrifice of Christ teaches us nothing more clearly than what he himself calls out, as if to those whom he sees suffering in Egypt under Pharaoh: 'Come unto me, you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is a soft one, and my burden light.' Who are these but the gentle and lowly in heart, people not puffed up by knowledge but built up by love? One hundred forty-nine. Remember those who celebrated the Passover in days gone by, in its unreal and shadowy form; when the command was given to mark their gateposts with the blood of a lamb, they were also sprinkled with hyssop. This is a lowly and gentle plant, but nothing is stronger or more penetrating than its roots, so that 'rooted and grounded in love' we may be able 'to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth'. This refers to the Lord's cross. The breadth is the cross-beam, on which the hands were stretched out; the length is the part from the ground to the cross-beam, to which is fixed the whole body from the hands downward; the height is the part from the cross-beam up to the top, to which the head is attached; the depth is the hidden part, firmly set in the ground. One hundred fifty. In the symbol of the cross every Christian act is inscribed: to do good in Christ and to hold fast resolutely to him, to hope for heaven, to avoid profaning the sacraments. If we are purified by such behaviour we will be able 'to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge'—the love in which he, by whom everything was made, is equal to the Father—and so be filled with all the fullness of God. Hyssop also has a cleansing power, so that nobody should boast, with his head inflated by a knowledge of the wealth he has taken from Egypt. 'You will sprinkle me with hyssop', scripture says, 'and I shall be made clean; you will wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. You will give exultation and joy to my ears.' Then to follow that up it adds, to demonstrate that hyssop signifies cleansing from pride: 'the bones once abased will rejoice.' One hundred fifty-one. The insignificance of the amount of gold, silver, and clothing which that people took away with it from Egypt, in comparison with the wealth that it later attained in Jerusalem, as shown particularly in the reign of Solomon, is the measure of the insignificance of all knowledge, I mean useful knowledge, that is collected from pagan books, when compared with the knowledge contained in the divine scriptures. 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 sublimity and the remarkable humility of the scriptures. One hundred fifty-two. Readers furnished with such an education will not be held back by unfamiliar signs. Gentle and lowly in heart, peacefully subject to Christ, laden with a light burden, founded and rooted and built up in love, and incapable of being puffed up by knowledge, they should now proceed to consider and analyse the ambiguous signs in the scriptures, on which I will now endeavour to present, in my third book, such learning as the Lord deigns to deliver to me.