St Augustine (A.D. 354-430)

• attention to the sign
• paved way for later theories of allegory
• signs are "things used to signify something"; sign points to something else (Trinity of Father-Son-Holy Spirit); "movement of signification toward God"; enjoyment not of the signifier but of the signified
• surface meaning conceals "a depth of intellectual beauty"
• difficulty of understanding yields pleasure

De Doctrina Christiana (A.D. 396-426) (On Christian Doctrine,
trans. D.W. Robertson, Jr.)

Book One

• "every sign is also a thing . . .but not every thing is also a sign"
• "we should use this world and not enjoy it"; "so that by means of corporal and temporal things we may comprehend the eternal and spiritual
• "the things which are to be enjoyed are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit"; "the cause of all things"
• lesson of charity in the Scriptures
• "anyone who understands in the Scriptures something other than that intended by them is deceived"
• "three things for which all knowledge and prophecy struggle: faith, hope, and charity"
• "a man supported by faith, hope, and charity . . . does not need the Scriptures"
• "when anyone knows the end of the commandments to be charity . . . he may approach the treatment of these books with security" [notice the deductive reasoning in this system of interpretation]

Book Two

• "no one should consider them [signs] for what they are but rather for their value as signs which signify something else. A sign is a thing which causes us to think of something beyond the impression the thing itself makes upon the senses"
• signs: natural (e.g. smoke signifies fire) and conventional
• "conventional signs are those which living creatures show to one another for the purpose of conveying . . . the motion of their spirits or something which they have sensed or understood"
• Scriptures written by men with signs given by God
• "obscurities and ambiguities deceive those who read casually, understanding one thing instead of another"
• "things which are easily discovered seem frequently to become worthless"
• "I contemplated the saints more pleasantly when I envisage them as the teeth of the Church cutting off men from their errors and transferring them to her body after their hardness has been softened as if by being bitten and chewed. I recognize them most pleasantly as shorn sheep having put aside the burdens of the world like so much fleece" [notice the violence of the images]
• "why it seems sweeter to me than if no such similitude were offered in the divine books . . . is difficult to say" [this is a significant comment which may be helpful in explaining Augustine's divided attitudes]
• "things are perceived more readily through similitudes"; "what is sought with difficulty is discovered with more pleasure"
• recommendation of "canonical" works; "he may read the others more securely when he has been instructed in the truth of the faith so that they may no preoccupy a weak mind" [notice the concern with personal, non-canonical interpretation]
• "follow the authority of the greater number of catholic Churches"
• "to know these books even if they are not understood, at least to read them or to memorize them"
• "having become familiar with the language of the Divine Scriptures, we should turn to those obscure things which must be opened up and explained so that we may take examples from those things that are manifest to illuminate those things which are obscure"
• "signs are either literal or figurative"
• "figurative signs occur when that thing which we designate by a literal sign is used to signify something else"