i8 74 ] WHAT TO SEEK IN THE BIBLE 217 



departed most widely from the intellectualism of the 

 Greek fathers, and anticipated most fully much of the 

 Reformation theology, may be readily judged by reference 

 to Augustin s hermeneutical treatise de Fide Christiana. 

 Augustin, like Origen, appeals to the regula fidei as the 

 highest criterion of interpretation, as containing the 

 compass of the res which the signa in the Scriptures 

 must unfold. Under the signa, again, he includes not 

 words only as logical signs, but the literal sense of a 

 passage whenever it does not enounce a spiritual truth 

 (cf. i. 2, iii. 5, etc.). On the other hand, Augustin gives to 

 Scripture a more practical character than Origen, inso 

 much as the heavenly things with which it is busied are 

 conceived not as mere philosophemes, but as res qua 

 fruendum est, that is God Himself, whom we are enabled 

 to enjoy if we hold fast the Christian precepts of faith, 

 hope, and love (i. 39). Thus the end of the law and 

 of all Scripture (i. 35) is the love of God, whom it is our 

 end to enjoy, and of the fellow-men who can enjoy 

 Him along with us. And manifestly this end is often 

 served by the literal sense. So we are not always to 

 look for an allegorical interpretation, but only to re 

 member that &quot; whatever has no proper bearing on the 

 rule of life or the verity of faith, must be recognised as 

 figurative.&quot; 



It is easy to see that in these rules a much deeper 

 Christianity than that of Origen is struggling more than 

 half unconsciously with the radical defects of view 

 common to the whole ancient Church. Christianity is 

 still a law the law of faith, hope, and love. The 

 historical sense is valuable not as history of Redemption, 

 but as inculcating the Christian law. For manifestly 

 there can be no true recognition of the historic in Scripture, 

 where it is held that almost every narrative of the Old 

 Testament has a figurative as well as a literal meaning, 

 that the same truths may be expressed indifferently in 

 letter or figure, nay, that the truth figuratively conveyed 



