On First Principles 4.2.1–4.3.3

Having briefly set out these things, then, concerning the inspiration of the divine Scriptures by the Holy Spirit, it seems necessary also to explain how some, not reading or understanding them rightly, have given themselves over to very many errors, because the way by which one must proceed to the understanding of the divine writings is unknown to very many. Indeed the Jews, through the hardness of their hearts and because they wished to seem wise to themselves, did not believe in our Lord and Saviour, supposing that what was prophesied about him must be understood according to the letter: that is, that he ought to have “preached release to the captives” in a sensible and visible way, and that he ought first to have built the city which they truly think to be “the city of God,” and at the same time to have “cut off the chariots of Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem,” and also to have “eaten butter and honey, so that before he knew how to bring forth evil he might choose the good.” They also thought it was prophesied that “the wolf,” the four-footed animal, would at the coming of Christ “feed with lambs, and the leopard lie down with kids, that the calf and the bull would feed together with lions and be led to pasture by a little child, that the ox and the bear would lie down together in the pastures and their young be reared together, and that lions too would stand at the mangers with oxen and eat straw.” Seeing that none of all these things prophesied of him had been done according to the history, in which they believed above all that the signs of Christ's coming were to be looked for, they would not receive the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ; on the contrary, as if he had taken the name of Christ for himself against right and law, that is, against the faith of prophecy, they nailed him to the cross. Then the heretics, reading what is written in the law, “A fire has been kindled from my anger”; and, “I am God, jealous, repaying the sins of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation”; and, “I repent that I anointed Saul king”; and, “I am God, who make peace and create evils”; and again, “There is no evil in a city which the Lord has not done”; and, “Evils came down from the Lord upon the gates of Jerusalem”; and that “an evil spirit from God choked Saul”; and many other things like these which are written, did not dare to say that these were not the Scriptures of God, but supposed them to belong to that creator God whom the Jews worshipped, who, they thought, must be believed to be only just and not also good; and that the Saviour came to announce to us a more perfect God, whom they deny to be the creator of the world, disagreeing among themselves with various opinions on this very point; since, having once withdrawn from faith in God the creator, who is the God of all, they gave themselves over to various fictions and fables, inventing certain things and saying that some things are visible and made by one, and others invisible and founded by another, as the fancy and vanity of their own souls suggested to them. And some too of the simpler ones among those who are seen to be held within the faith of the church think indeed that there is none greater than God the creator, holding in this a right and sound opinion; but they think such things of him as ought not to be thought even of the most unjust and cruel of men.

But the cause of the false understanding of all those of whom we have spoken above was none other than this: that holy Scripture is understood by them not according to the spiritual sense but according to the sound of the letter. Therefore we shall try, according to the modest measure of our understanding, to show those who believe that the holy Scriptures are not composed of any human words but were written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and were handed down and entrusted to us too by the will of God the Father through his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, what seems to us the right way of understanding them, keeping that rule and discipline which the apostles received from Jesus Christ and handed down by succession to their posterity as well, who teach the heavenly church. And indeed that certain mystical dispensations are indicated through the holy Scriptures, all, I think, even the simpler believers, confess. But what these are, or of what kind, anyone of right mind who is not troubled by the vice of boasting will more reverently admit that he does not know. For if someone, for example, puts to us the case of Lot's daughters, who seem to have joined with their father against what is lawful, or of the two wives of Abraham, or of the two sisters who were married to Jacob, and of the two handmaids who increased the number of his sons, what else can be answered than that these are certain mysteries and forms of spiritual things, but that it is not known to us of what kind they are? And when we read of the construction of the tabernacle, we hold it for certain that these things that are written are figures of certain hidden things; but to fit them to their proper measures and to open and discuss them one by one is, I think, very difficult, not to say impossible. Yet, as I said, that this description is full of mysteries does not escape even the common understanding. And all that narrative which seems to be written about marriages, or the begetting of sons, or various battles, or any other histories whatever, what else is to be believed than that they are forms and figures of hidden and sacred things? But because people apply little zeal to exercising their minds, or think they know before they learn, it comes about that they never begin to know. But if neither zeal is lacking nor a teacher, and if these things are sought as divine and not as human, that is, religiously and piously, and with the hope that they will be opened in very many points by God's revelation, since to human senses they are very difficult and hidden, then perhaps the one who seeks in this way will find what it is lawful to find.

But perhaps it may be thought that this difficulty lies only in the prophetic sayings, since it is agreed by all that the prophetic style is always thick with figures and enigmas: what, then, when we come to the Gospels? Is there not there too a hidden, inner sense, as being the sense of the Lord, which is revealed only through the grace that he had received who said, “But we have the mind of Christ, that we may know the things given us by God, which we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in the teaching of the Spirit”? And now the things that were revealed to John: if anyone reads them, how will he not be amazed that there is so great a concealment of ineffable mysteries in them, in which even those who cannot understand what is hidden in them nevertheless plainly understand that something is hidden? And the Epistles of the apostles, which seem to some to be plainer, are they not filled with meanings so deep that through them, to those who can understand the sense of divine wisdom, the brightness of an immense light seems to pour as through a small opening? Since, then, these things are so, and many in this life go astray, I do not think it is without danger to declare lightly that anyone knows or understands the things which, in order to be opened, need “the key of knowledge,” the key which the Saviour said was with “the lawyers.” Here, though by way of digression, I think we should ask those who say that before the Saviour's coming there was no truth among those who were occupied with the law, how it can be said by our Lord Jesus Christ that “the keys of knowledge” were with those who had in their hands the books of the law and the prophets. For so the Lord said: “Woe to you, teachers of the law, for you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and those who wished to enter you hindered.”

But, as we had begun to say, the way which seems to us the right one for understanding the Scriptures and searching out their sense is, we think, of this kind, since we are taught by Scripture itself how we ought to think about it. In Solomon, in Proverbs, we find some such precept about the handling of divine Scripture: “And you,” he says, “describe these things to yourself threefold, in counsel and knowledge, that you may answer words of truth to those who put questions to you.” Each one, then, ought to describe in his soul threefold the understanding of the divine writings: that is, that the simpler may be edified by what is, so to speak, the very body of the Scriptures (for so we call this common and historical understanding); that those who have already begun to make some progress, and can see something more, may be edified by the very soul of Scripture; and that those who are perfect, and like those of whom the apostle says, “We speak wisdom among the perfect, yet not the wisdom of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are being destroyed; but we speak the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery, which God foreordained before the ages for our glory,” may be edified by the “spiritual law,” which “has a shadow of the good things to come,” as by the spirit. For as a human being is said to consist of body, soul and spirit, so also does holy Scripture, which has been granted by divine generosity for the salvation of human beings. We see this indicated also in the little book of the Shepherd, which seems to be despised by some, where Hermas is ordered “to write two little books” and afterwards himself “to announce to the presbyters of the church” what he had learned from the Spirit. It is written in these words: “And you will write two little books, and give one to Clement and one to Grapte. And let Grapte admonish the widows and orphans, and let Clement send to all the cities that are outside; but you will announce to the presbyters of the church.” Grapte, then, who is ordered to admonish the “orphans” and “widows,” is the pure understanding of the letter itself, by which childish souls are admonished that have not yet deserved to have God as their father and are therefore called “orphans.” And they are also “widows,” who have withdrawn from that unjust man to whom they had been joined contrary to the law, but remain “widows” because they have not yet advanced to being joined to the heavenly “bridegroom.” “Clement” is ordered to send what has been said to those who are already withdrawing from the letter, into “the cities that are outside,” as if he said: to those souls which, edified by these things, have begun to be outside care for the body and outside fleshly desires. And he himself is ordered to announce what he had learned from the Holy Spirit, not by letters nor by a book but by living voice, to the presbyters of the churches of Christ, that is, to those who bear a mature sense of wisdom according to their capacity for spiritual teaching.

But we must certainly not be unaware that there are some places in the Scriptures in which what we have called the body, that is, the sequence of the historical understanding, is not always found, as we shall show in what follows; and there are places where only what we have called the soul, or the spirit, is to be understood. I think this is indicated in the Gospels too, when it is said that there were “six water jars” set there for the purification of the Jews, “holding two or three measures each.” By this, as I said, the Gospel word seems to indicate, concerning those whom the apostle calls Jews “in secret,” that they are purified by the word of Scripture, receiving sometimes “two measures,” that is, the understanding of the soul or of the spirit according to what we said above, and sometimes “three,” when the reading can also preserve for edification the bodily understanding, which is that of the history. And “six water jars” are fittingly mentioned with reference to those who are purified while placed in this world; for we read that this world and everything in it were completed in six days, which is a perfect number.

How great the usefulness of this first understanding, which we have called historical, is, the whole multitude of believers is witness, who believe both faithfully enough and simply; nor does what lies open to all need much argument. Of the understanding which we said above is, as it were, the soul of Scripture, the apostle Paul has given us very many examples, as for instance first in the Epistle to the Corinthians. “For it is written,” he says, “You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain.” Then, explaining how this precept ought to be understood, he adds: “Is it for oxen that God cares? Or does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake, that he who ploughs should plough in hope, and he who threshes in hope of a share.” And very many other things of this kind, interpreted in this way from the law, give great instruction to those who hear them. A spiritual explanation, on the other hand, is of this kind: if someone can show of what “heavenly things” those who are Jews “according to the flesh” “serve the copy and shadow,” and of what “good things to come the law has a shadow,” and anything else of this kind found in the holy Scriptures; or when it is asked what that “wisdom hidden in a mystery” is, “which God foreordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew”; or what the apostle himself says when, using certain examples from Exodus or Numbers, he says that “these things happened to them in a figure, but were written for our sake, on whom the ends of the ages have come,” and gives us an occasion of understanding, so that we may notice of what things these events that befell them were figures, when he says, “For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” And in another epistle he recalls concerning the tabernacle the saying that had been commanded to Moses: “You shall make everything,” he says, “according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” And writing to the Galatians, and as it were reproaching certain people who seem to themselves to read the law and yet do not understand it, because they do not know that there are allegories in what is written, he says to them with a kind of rebuke: “Tell me, you who wish to be under the law, have you not heard the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free woman. But the one by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, and the one by the free woman according to the promise; and these things are allegorical. For these are two covenants,” and the rest. Here this too must be noticed, how carefully the apostle said, “You who wish to be under the law,” and did not say, “you who are under the law,” “have you not heard the law?” “Heard” means: do you understand or recognize. And in the Epistle to the Colossians, briefly embracing and compressing the sense of the whole law, he says: “Let no one, then, judge you in food or in drink, or in festival days, or new moon, or sabbath, which are a shadow of things to come.” And writing to the Hebrews too, and discussing those who are of the circumcision, he says: “Those who serve the copy and shadow of heavenly things.” But perhaps, after these passages, those who receive the writings of the apostle as divinely spoken will not doubt about the five books of Moses. But concerning the rest of the history, they may ask whether the things related there too are to be said to have “happened in a figure” to those of whom they are written. We have observed that this also is stated in the Epistle to the Romans, where the apostle cites an example from the third book of Kingdoms, saying, “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” Paul took this as said figuratively of those who are called Israelites “according to election,” to show that the coming of Christ has benefited not only the Gentiles now but also very many of the race of Israel who have been called to salvation.

Since this is so, we shall sketch, by way of example and pattern, as far as things can occur to us, how divine Scripture is to be understood by us on each of these points; first repeating and pointing out that the Holy Spirit, by the providence and will of God, through the power of his only-begotten “Word,” who “was in the beginning God with God,” enlightened the ministers of truth, the prophets and apostles, to know the mysteries of those things or causes which take place among human beings or concerning human beings. By “human beings” I now mean souls placed in bodies. And they, presenting these mysteries that had been made known and revealed to them through the Spirit as if they were narrating certain human deeds or handing down certain legal observances and precepts, described them figuratively; so that not just anyone who wished might have these things set before his feet to trample on, but only one who had given himself to such studies with all chastity, sobriety and watchfulness, so that through these he might perhaps search out the sense of the Spirit of God hidden in the depths and concealed under the ordinary narrative of the words, which looks toward something else; and so might become a companion in the knowledge of the Spirit and a sharer in the divine counsel; because the soul cannot come to the perfection of knowledge in any other way than by being inspired by the truth of divine wisdom. Accordingly, what is chiefly set forth by these men filled with the divine Spirit concerns God, that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; then, filled with the divine Spirit, as we said, they set forth the mysteries of the Son of God, how “the Word became flesh,” and for what reason he came down even to taking up “the form of a servant.” Then it necessarily followed that they should also teach the race of mortals by divine words about rational creatures, both heavenly and earthly, the more blessed and the lower; and also about the differences of souls and where these differences arose; then what this world is and why it was made; and also where so great and so dreadful a wickedness on earth comes from, and whether it is on earth only or in other places too: these things it was necessary for us to learn from the divine words.

Since, then, the intention of the Holy Spirit was to enlighten about these and similar matters the holy souls that had devoted themselves to the ministry of truth, there was in the second place this aim: that, for the sake of those who could not or would not give themselves to the labour and diligence by which they might deserve to be taught or to recognize such great things, he should, as we said above, wrap up and conceal hidden mysteries in ordinary words, under the cover of a certain history and narrative of visible things. So a narrative of the visible creation is brought in, and the making and forming of the first man, then the offspring that followed from him in succession; some of the deeds done by the righteous are related, and sometimes certain sins of theirs are also mentioned, as of human beings; then some things done shamelessly or wickedly by the ungodly are also written. In a wonderful way, too, a narrative of battles is set out, describing now the victors and now the vanquished, through which certain ineffable mysteries are declared to those who know how to examine such sayings. And in the writing of the law, by an admirable discipline of wisdom, the law of truth is inserted and prophesied; each of these things has been woven by a certain divine art of wisdom as a kind of garment and veil of spiritual senses; and this is what we called the body of holy Scripture, so that through this very garment of the letter, as we called it, woven with the art of wisdom, very many might be edified and make progress who otherwise could not.

But since, if the coherence of this garment, that is, of the history and the law, had been kept in everything and its order preserved, we, having a continuous course of understanding, would certainly not believe that there was anything else enclosed within the holy Scriptures beyond what was indicated at first sight, divine wisdom for this reason arranged for certain stumbling-blocks or interruptions of the historical sense to occur, by inserting in the middle certain impossible and incongruous things; so that the very interruption of the narrative, like barriers set before the reader, might resist him, denying him the road and passage of this common understanding, and, shutting us out and driving us back, might call us to the beginning of another way, so that, by the entrance of a narrow path, it might open to us the immense breadth of divine knowledge on a higher and more eminent road. We must also know this: since the chief aim of the Holy Spirit is to keep the coherence of the spiritual sense, whether in things that are to be done or in things already done, wherever he found that the things done according to the history could be fitted to the spiritual sense, he composed the fabric of both orders in one narrative, always hiding the secret sense more deeply; but where the history of events could not fit the spiritual coherence, he sometimes inserted certain things that either did not happen or could not happen at all, and sometimes things that could indeed happen but did not. Sometimes he does this in a few words, which according to the bodily understanding do not seem able to keep the truth, and sometimes by inserting many; this is found especially often in the legislation, where there are many things that are plainly useful in the bodily precepts themselves, but some in which no reason of usefulness whatever is seen, and sometimes even impossible things are decreed. All these things, as we said, the Holy Spirit arranged so that, since what lies on the surface can be neither true nor useful, we might be called back to the search for a truth sought more deeply and examined more carefully, and might search for a sense worthy of God in the Scriptures, which we believe to be inspired by God. The Holy Spirit arranged these things not only in what was written up to the coming of Christ, but, being one and the same Spirit and proceeding from the one God, he did the same likewise in the Gospels and the apostles. For even the narratives he inspired through them he did not weave without the art of his wisdom of the kind we explained above. Hence in them too he mixed in not a few things by which the historical order of the narrative, interrupted or broken off by its own impossibility, might turn back and recall the attention of the reader to the examination of the inner understanding.

But that what we say may be recognized from the things themselves, let us now knock at the very places of Scripture. To whom, I ask, that has understanding, will it seem consistently said that the first, second and third day, in which “evening” and “morning” are named, were without sun and moon and stars, and the first day even without a sky? Who will be found so simple as to think that, like some farmer, “God planted trees in paradise, in Eden toward the east,” and planted in it a “tree of life,” that is, a visible and palpable piece of wood, so that someone eating from that tree with bodily teeth would receive life, and again, eating from another tree, would gain the knowledge “of good and evil”? And when “God” is said “to walk in paradise after midday,” “and Adam to hide under a tree,” I do not think anyone doubts that these things are set forth by Scripture in a figurative way, so that certain mystical things may be indicated through them. And “Cain,” going out “from the face of God,” plainly moves the prudent reader to ask what “the face of God” is, and how anyone can “go out” from it. But not to stretch out the work in hand further than is right, it is very easy for anyone who wishes to gather from the holy Scriptures things that are written as having happened, which nevertheless cannot be believed to have happened fittingly and reasonably according to the history. This kind of writing is also found abundantly in the books of the Gospels, as when the devil is said to have set Jesus “on a high mountain,” in order to “show him from there all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.” How could this seem to have been done according to the letter, either that Jesus was led up by the devil “onto a high mountain,” or that the devil “showed” to his bodily eyes “all the kingdoms of the world,” the kingdom of the Persians, of the Scythians and of the Indians, as lying below and next to one mountain, or how their kings are glorified by men? And whoever reads attentively will find very many other things like these in the Gospels, from which he will notice that in these narratives that seem to be set forth according to the letter, things are inserted and woven in that the history does not admit, but that the spiritual understanding holds.

Similar things are found in the passages containing precepts as well. In the law of Moses it is commanded that “every male who has not been circumcised on the eighth day shall be cut off”; which is very inconsistent, since, if the law were handed down to be kept according to the history, it ought certainly to have been commanded that the parents be punished who did not circumcise their sons, or those who rear the infants. But as it is, Scripture says: “The uncircumcised male,” that is, “the one who has not been circumcised on the eighth day, shall be cut off from his people.” And if we must also inquire into impossible laws, we find that an animal called the tragelaphus, which cannot exist at all, is among the clean animals that Moses commands to be eaten; and the lawgiver forbids the griffin to be eaten, which no one remembers or has heard of ever falling into human hands. And of the much-celebrated observance of the Sabbath he says thus: “You shall sit each one in your houses; no one shall move from his place on the day of the Sabbath.” This is certainly impossible to observe according to the letter; for no human being can sit for a whole day without moving from the place where he sat. About each of these points, those who are of the circumcision, and whoever wish nothing more to be understood in the holy Scriptures than what is indicated by the letter, think that the questions of the tragelaphus, the griffin and the vulture should not even be raised; and they invent certain empty and frivolous fables, bringing forward from I know not what traditions about the Sabbath that each person's place is reckoned within two thousand cubits. Others, among whom is Dositheus the Samaritan, find fault with explanations of this kind, but themselves lay down something more ridiculous: that in whatever posture, place and position one is found on the Sabbath day, one should remain so until evening; that is, if sitting, one should sit the whole day, and if lying down, lie the whole day. And the command, “Do not lift a burden on the Sabbath day,” seems to me impossible. For from such things the teachers of the Jews have run off into “endless fables,” as the holy apostle says, saying that it is not reckoned a “burden” if someone wears shoes without nails, but that it is a “burden” if someone wears sandals with nails; and that if someone carries something on one shoulder they judge it a “burden,” but if on both shoulders they will deny that it is a “burden.”

Now if we look for similar things in the Gospels as well, how will it not seem absurd, if it is understood according to the letter, that it is said, “Greet no one on the way”? Yet the simpler believers think that our Saviour commanded this to the apostles. And how can it seem possible to observe, especially in those places where a very harsh winter is made rougher by “icy frosts,” that one should have “neither two tunics nor shoes”? And that one who is “struck on the right cheek” is commanded “to offer the left as well,” when everyone who strikes with the right hand strikes the left cheek? This too must be counted among the impossibilities, what is written in the Gospel, that “if the right eye causes you to stumble, it should be plucked out.” For even if we suppose that it is said of bodily eyes, how will it seem consistent that, since one sees with both eyes, the blame for the stumbling should be referred to one, and that to the right one? Or who will be held free of the greatest crime if he lays hands on himself? But perhaps the letters of the apostle Paul will seem to be free of such things. Yet what does he mean when he says, “Was anyone called circumcised? Let him not draw on a foreskin”? First, if one considers it carefully, it does not seem to be said with reference to the matters he had in hand; for his discourse was giving precepts about marriage and chastity, so that these words will certainly seem to be mentioned superfluously in such a context. Second, what harm would it do, if it were possible for someone to draw on the foreskin in order to avoid the unseemliness that comes from circumcision? Third, it is certainly impossible in every way for this to be done.