1. Lecture 4: Theological Method II
Dr. Ann T. Orlando

2. Outline Outline of Books III and IV
Contemporary Importance of De Doctrina Christiana

3. Transition from Book II to Book III
Books I and II focused on fundamentals of language and the relation of language to reality (things),
Especially the language of Scripture and its relation to the ultimate reality, the Trinity
Book III focuses on approaching the various meaning(s) of the language in Scripture (hermeneutics)
Language (signs) in Scripture can have more than one meaning
The arbiter of correct meanings is the Church

4. DDC Book III
Recall that the Manichees reject the Old Testament because of a strictly literal interpretation
Augustine asserts that all deeds of OT are to be interpreted figuratively (allegorically) as well as literally
But need a method to properly use allegory
Augustine inherits an allegorical tradition from Ambrose (who in turn inherits it from Origen, via the Cappadocians)
Recall key moment in Confessions V.xiii-xiv when Augustine first hears Ambrose preach on an allegorical meaning of the Old Testament
But Augustine does recognize that a figurative meaning cannot be unrestricted
Rules are needed to guide proper interpretation

5. Tychonius
Tychonius, late 4th C, was a Donatist, although at odds with the Donatist bishop of Carthage.
At odds with Donatists because he believed that the Church would remain mixed good and bad until the eschaton
Only one of his works survives, The Book of Rules
Likely because of its influence on Augustine, especially in DDC see Letter 249, “To Restitutus”

6. Tychonius Seven Rules, a Summary
1 Scripture sometimes speaks of Lord and the Church, His Body simultaneously
2 The Church in the world is mixed
3 God’s eternal law is operative from the beginning of creation to its end
4 Scripture testifies to general truths using particular things, people of events
5 Particulars are not necessarily literal, but signify eternal truths
6 Relation between Old and New Testament is one of recapitulation
7 As with Rule 1, references to Satan may be to him specifically and/or his followers

7. The one best method for interpreting Scripture
How to know if an expression is proper or figurative:
“…anything in the divine writings that cannot be referred either to good moral, honest morals or to the truth of the faith, you must know is said figuratively.” DCC x.14.
Good honest morals belong to loving God and one’s neighbor
The truth of faith to knowing God and one’s neighbor
“By love I mean the impulse of one’s mind to enjoy God on his own account and to enjoy oneself and one’s neighbor on account of God; and by lust I mean the impulse of one’s mind to enjoy oneself and one’s neighbor and any corporeal thing not on account of God.” (DDC III.x.16)

8. Sacrament in DDC, Book III.9.13
Signs can also be non-verbal; that is signs can be objects as signa translata:
“But the Lord himself and the discipline of the apostles has handed down to us a few signs…and these so easy to perform, and so awesome to understand, and so pure and chaste to celebrate, such as the sacrament of baptism and the celebration of the Lord’s body and blood. When people receive these…they can recognize to what sublime realities they refer.”

9. Augustine and Sacraments
Sacraments are a movement from visible to invisible, from ordinary things to spiritual reality
Sacraments as visible divine word
Sacrament both sign and reality of the mystery (spiritual reality) of Christ
Scripture as a sacrament
Interpretation of Scripture as a Sacrament
Creed and Lord’s Prayer as Sacraments
Triduum
Church is the authority that mediates sacraments (including Scripture)

10. Book IV
Augustine wrote Book IV 30 years after Book III
As he says at the beginning of both Books I and IV, “…there are two things which every treatment of Scripture should strive for:
A way of attaining an understanding of meaning (modus inveniendi)
A way of communicating what has been understood (modus proferendi)” (IV.1.1, quoting I.1.1)
“The wisdom of what a person says is in direct proportion to his progress in learning the holy Scriptures – and I am not speaking of intensive reading or memorization, but real understanding and careful investigation of their meaning.” (IV.v)

11. Book IV and Rhetoric
Rhetoric can be used to convince people of falsehood; Christian preacher should first of all be concerned to preach the truth
By reading and studying Christian literature outside of canon, preacher can learn how to preach.
Before preaching, the preacher should lift his soul to God
The benefit of preaching is effected by God
Styles of preaching

12. Ludwig Wittgenstein Born in Vienna in 1889
Moved to Cambridge in 1911 and developed close relation with Bertrand Russell
Returned to Austria and fought in WW I
POW
After WWI settled permanently in Cambridge
Died in 1951

13. Wittgenstein and Language
‘The only problem in philosophy is language’
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was first published in German in 1921, shortly after in English
Thought is more like a picture than language
Language used to express thoughts
But, against Augustine, “what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over is silence”
Philosophical Investigations was published posthumously in (translated and edited by G.E.M. Anscombe)
A type of reconsideration of earlier work
Begins with Augustine and language, with a quote from Conf. I.8.13
A reconsideration of Augustine’s sign model of language
Develops ‘language-game’ as a way to describe language and how we can ; but rules of game are not static

14. Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900 – 2002)
Student of Heidegger
Most important work, Truth and Method
Opposed to notion that ‘scientific method’ can be applied to human sciences, especially history, philosophy and literature
Human sciences rooted in language (not mathematics)
Understand the human sciences in terms of culture and education: hermeneutical circle
Culture and education now shaped by preceding culture and education (history) gives people in society necessary pre- understanding
Classic: we approach a classic with the cultural judgment that the text has authority
The effect of a classic in subsequent generations
Application of the text to current circumstance

15. Critics of Gadamer Jurgen Habermas (b. 1929)
Famously ‘in dialog’ with Joseph Ratzinger
Endurance of classics may not be because of enduring value, but because reinforce power structures
Texts can distort understanding
Example: Augustine and Donatists
Jacques Derrida (1930 – 2004)
Language changes; each person creates own meaning from language
Questions ability to find common ‘truth’ across history and peoples
Deconstruction
Key work, Circumfessions

16. Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German, Jewish, philosopher
Barely escapes Nazis and immigrates to US
Most famous work is based on her dissertation, based on her close reading of DCC and other of Augustine’s works
Published in English in 1996 as Hannah Arendt. Love and Saint Augustine.
Among other things argues that Augustine's notion of use of others to attain God is ultimately destructive of society
See Rowan Williams rebuttal of Arendt in “Language, Reality and Desire in Augustine’s “De Doctrina”
Arendt very influenced by CoG and the libido domeniandi in her Origins of Totalitarianism
But likely she is most famous for referring to Adolph Eichmann and Nazi holocaust as ‘the banality of evil.’
She was a correspondent for The New Yorker at Eichmann’s trial and subsequently wrote a book about it, Eichmann in Jerusalem.
Based on her reading of Augustine and evil as privation

17. Assignment
DDC Books III and IV
Letter 249
Prepare paper #4

18. Some Works Consulted
Salon, Peter. Augustine’s Theology of Preaching. Lanham: Fortress, 2014.
Schildgen, Brenda Dean. “Augustine’s Answer to Jacques Derrida in the De Doctrina Christiana,” New Literary History, Vol. 25, No. 2., Writers on Writers (Spring 1994), pp
Andrews, James. “Why Theological Hermeneutics Needs Rhetoric: Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana,” International Journal of Systematic Theology Vo. 12 No. 2 April 2010; pp
Arendt, Hannah. Love and Saint Augustine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.