Multiplicity of Meaning and Vulnerability in Translation

In addition to the following resources, a very good article on embracing the multiplicity of meaning in Bible translation is:

Zetzche J. Knowing what the Bible «really» means: Why
multiple translations might even be better than Scripture in its
original languages // Christianity Today. 2013, №57(3, April). P. 42.

Tarmo Toom (from the Catholic University of America), "Augustine’s Case for the Multiplicity of Meanings." Augustinian Studies 45/2 (2014): 183-201.

Extracted text from Missio_Dei_Article_on_Equivalence.pdf:

Missio Dei: A Journal of Missional Theology and Praxis 5, vol. 1 (February 2014)

The Mystery and Mirage of Equivalence: Bible Translation Theory and the Practice of Christian Mission Yancy Smith Since the era of Eugene Nida, evangelical Bible translation has been revolutionized by his notion of dynamic or functional equivalence. Powerful theological and theoretical concerns, however, call into question its usefulness and its catholicity. This article explores and questions the usefulness of the equivalence model of translation in Christian mission from the standpoint of incarnation. God wanted to possess the earth so much that he sent his only son so that whoever was deceived by him would not perish but would become a wandering ghost forever. John 3:16 (First draft, local translator, Ziga translation, Burkina Faso)1 If politics is the art of the possible, translation is the art of the impossible.2 In an article with great significance for Bible translation theory and Christian mission, Andrew Walls described translation in exceptionally clear terms: Exact transmission of meaning from one linguistic medium to another is constantly hampered not only by structural and cultural difference; the words of the receptor language are pre-loaded, and the old cargo drags the new into areas uncharted in the source language. In the end the translator has simply to do his best and take risks in a high-risk business.3 A translation like the Ziga of John 3:16, incorrect in one sense, nonetheless, represents what the biblical text meant in the cultural milieu of Ziga translators. Like any translation, it is provisional. All translations are provisional in that they look forward to a better translation that is already and always yet to come. In this case, the cultural mismatches between modern tribal Africa and the ancient Mediterranean make the translated words of the Greek text of John sound more like a version of hell rather than eternal life. Worst of all, Jesus and Father God take on strange, grotesque characteristics. Translation has this capacity to provoke the uncanny experience of the strange in the familiarwhat is known as contained alterity.4 That is, through a limited encounter, we experience the uniqueness of our enculturated selves in the presence of the culture of the other. Perhaps this is a place for the extension of hospitality5 or of hostility. We read and perhaps we laugh but then perhaps look forward to the translations future perfection when, through careful editing, and with the help of a consultant, the text achieves equivalence with the meaning of the original text, even if that perfection is unattainable. For translationas imperfect in practice as unrealizable in theorybrings diplomats together in ongoing discussions, extends hospitality in family settings, and mediates street-corner debates and cross-cultural encounters in cafs, hospitals, churches, court-rooms, and schools. Translation is at the heart of constant interchange in urban centers as well as remote areas. Yet translation becomes weaponized in the interrogation cells of Guantanamo, in the streets of Damascus, and in the mountains of Tibet.6 Translation is not only possible; it is necessary to human life in its intercultural processes as we know them. Translators know7 that to facilitate audience understanding they must make major and minor adjustments for differences between languages.8 Semantics, information structures, social pragmatics, and basic cultural assumptions vary greatly from one language to another.9 Such adjustments often make translators suspect, as if they betray the original. Indeed, translators are caught in an intractable double bind of fidelity and betrayal. As Friedrich Schleiermacher said it: Either the translator leaves the writer alone as much as possible and moves the reader toward the writer, or he leaves the reader alone as much as possible and moves the writer toward the reader.10 The ancient Talmudic conundrum on marriage betrothal illustrates this rock-and-hard-place position. In ancient Judaism, ideally only a man who was able to read Scripture (Aramaic: karanaya) could become

betrothed to a woman. But what does it mean to read Scripture? In the Aramaic-speaking Jewish community of Babylon, reading Scripture also meant translating the Hebrew text into Aramaic, and translating is inherently dangerous! Our Rabbis taught: On condition that I am able to read the Scripture, once he has read three verses of the Pentateuch in the synagogue, she is betrothed. R. Judah said: He must be able to read and translate it. Even if he translates it according to his own understanding! But it was taught: R. Judah said: If one translates a verse literally, he is a liar; if he adds to it, he is a blasphemer and a libeler. Then what is meant by translation? Our translation!11 The Talmudic escape from the double bind was to prescribe the translation and carefully define reading. The obvious problem would be, if the reader memorized both the Hebrew text and the Targum, could he be said to read? The answer to that was to specify two different kinds of reader: one casual (Aramaic: karanaya) and one professional (Hebrew: kara). Double binds require creative solutions. Beyond the well-known saw translator is a traitor, the translator may experience a sense a self-betrayal. A translator re-reads his or her translation after the passage of time and thinks, How could I have done this? For as the translator moves on and changes, the original text also seems to change. In this case, the earlier self betrays the later self, or vice versa. Recently I experienced this sense of self-betrayal as I worked with some translators on a pilot project for a French language translation. After having spent years working on a Creole translation, I hoped my experience would facilitate consulting with the French language translators. I began with great excitement to consult with them, thinking the Creole experience would make my work easier. However, the previous translation proved to be a straitjacket at times from which I had to design an escape. Here is back-translated Creole John 1:1617: Yes, he was so full of the love and the truth for us, we all receive a blessing in his hand one after another. for God had given us only the law through Moses, but love and the truth come only through Jesus Christ. Of the several translation issues raised by this passage, the most salient at the time seemed to be the lack of a coordinating conjunction in verse 17 in the Greek text. The natural relation between the two clauses seemed to be a contrast. Providing the passage with a but (men) was the solution. The giving of the law was in stark contrast with grace and truth that come through Jesus Christ. Indeed, verse 18 confirmed our understanding: No one has ever seen God12 indicated a fundamental flaw with the Law of Moses. Perhaps Pauls opposition of law and grace also guided our translation. Popular translations like the NIV and the NRSV simply put a semicolon between the two clauses, thus leaving an apparent ambiguity. Of course the Greek text had no punctuation and, indeed, the addition of a semicolon is also a translation. Further work on the same text, this time translating into French, proved our previous translation woefully inadequate. Verse 16 took on a new light, especially the phrase: we all receive grace after grace. Once we put aside the influence of Paul, we could see verse 17 as describing two instances of the succession of gracious gifts mentioned in verse 16 rather than a stark contrast of the ungracious (or somewhat gracious) Law of Moses followed by truth and grace in Jesus Christ. The resulting translation was: The Word was so rich that he has given us all one blessing after another. For God gave the Law through Moses,

then love and the truth came by Jesus, the King sent by God. Like the NIV and NRSV translators who put a semicolon between the clauses of verse 17, we were forced by French grammar to translate a nothing into a something, whether a comma or a puis or a mais. Whichever something we put in its place turns out to be very significant. Just as John 1:1 is an invitation to re-enter the reading of the Law of Moses from a new perspective, so this passage continues that invitation to re-read the Bible and all of life through a new entry point: the life of God revealed in the person of Jesus. Perhaps both the Creole and French translations are equivalent to the Greek text; however, neither translation is equivalent to the other. If the original text is equivalent to two translations not equivalent to themselves, the notion of equivalence becomes problematic. This is true even if we accept a careful caveat about equivalence: that perfect equivalence is impossible. What we really have is polyvalence with a certain correspondence. Is the texts ambiguity the point? Would an ambiguous translation of the passage, then, be an equivalent translation? We have no way of knowing. Despite its problematic nature, translation has also served as a model for Christian mission.13 A translation model of mission is rather common and usually depends upon a notion of textual equivalence between original texts and their translations.14 The meaning is assumed to be stable and functions as a sort of tertium quid, like a textual version of the logos of John 1:1. Somehow and somewhere that meaning exists independently of any translation. Sometimes the meaning is thought to be in the text or in the mind of God or perhaps available in the consensus of the community of scholars. In our minds, meanings ghostly presence functions to endorse the equivalent value of the text. But it is not really possible to separate the meaning of the text from any persons interpretation of the text. The meaning is always an understanding: always, already an interpretation. For mission, the unchanging message of the gospel, in other words, is regarded as translatable into nonWestern cultural categories without being compromised. But such efforts . . . needed to be done with extreme caution. Such ethno-theology might easily be trapped in syncretism and become instead expressions of Christopaganism. 15 It seems that a translational model of mission that depends upon a notion of equivalence would have the same problems as equivalence in translation. And here the introduction of the term equivalence bedevils clear thinking. Charles Kraft, following Eugene Nida, opposed formal correspondence with dynamic equivalence.16 Nida and others like Kraft could well have used dynamic correspondence as a match for formal correspondence of the literalists. Both Krafts and Nidas practical ideas about audience-oriented translation have been robust and proven in the field. Yet, the theory of equivalence is a stone of stumbling. One suspects that Nidas introduction of equivalence was a tactical move against literalists. Equivalence claims authority over against literal translations. Since that time, so-called literalists matched dynamic equivalence with a formal equivalence of their own.17 Walls reframed translation as a metaphor for mission by grounding all translation in the incarnation, not by seeing translation merely as a metaphor for mission. Incarnation is translation.18 The Christian Scriptures, then, are not the Torah with an updating supplement. The translation of the speech of God, not just into human speech but into humanity, implies a different type of encounter with the divine. Much misunderstanding in Christian-Muslim relations has occurred from the assumption that the Bible and Quran have analogous status in the respective faiths. But the true Christian analogy with the Quran is not the Bible, but Christ.19 But translation, whether linguistic or divine, is always culture specific: When Divinity was translated into humanity, he did not become generalized humanity. He became a person in a particular locality and in a particular ethnic group, at a particular place and time. The translation of God into humanity, whereby the sense and meaning of God was transferred, was effected under very culture-specific conditions.

The implications of this broaden if we take the Johannine symbol of the Word made flesh along with the Pauline symbol of the Second Adam, the Ephesian theme of the multi-ethnic New Humanity which reaches its full stature in Christ, and with Pauls concern for Christ to be formed in the newly founded Gentile churches. It appears that Christ, Gods translated speech, is re-translated from the Palestinian Jewish original. . . . In other words, national distinctives, the things that mark out each nation, the shared consciousness and shared traditions, and shared mental processes and patterns of relationship, are within the scope of discipleship. . . . The first divine act of translation into humanity thus gives rise to a constant succession of new translations. Christian diversity is the necessary product of the Incarnation.20 The process of Bible translation reflected in the diversity of its products, then, is at the heart of the Christian faith. Perhaps no other specific activity more clearly represents the mission of the Church.21 This means the issues of Bible translation theory and practice are the issues of incarnation.22 The process breeds diversity so that new translations, by taking the biblical word about Christ into a new culture and applying it to new situations, have the potential to reshape and expand the Christian faith.23 Such a view of translation depends not upon equivalence but upon creative difference, even if the translation process must always proceed with the originals at hand, in correspondence to them and in the light of both past and present readers understandings of them. Therefore, correspondence is not one-sided but is a relationship of creative tension within a tradition. Walls points to the translational activity when Jewish followers of Jesus missionally provoked the first real encounter of the Christian faith with the pagan world as one of the most critical events in Christian history. The text hints at the radical nature of what happened in Antioch in several ways. The first hint is that the gospel was presented to non-Jews in terms of the Lord Jesus (Acts 11:20). In previous proclamation, says Walls, the significance of Jesus was expressed by the use of the Jewish title Messiah, which translates literally in Greek as christos. However, the anonymous Cypriots and Cyrenians spoke to Antiochene Gentiles in terms that they could better understand. Jesus was Lord (kyrios), the title Hellenistic pagans gave to their cult divinities and, we should add, to Caesar. Such a move was as radical as it was vital. It was radical because, for the first time, the gospel message was presented in terms that moved beyond the boundary of Judaism. It was vital because it is doubtful whether the Gentiles to whom the gospel was preached could have understood the significance of Jesus in any other way. The substitution of a word (not an equivalent) symbolizes a quantum leap beyond equivalence into missionary significance.24 Eugene Nida popularized the phrase dynamic equivalence along with functional equivalence,25 as opposed to formal correspondence, however, to indicate something more than a relationship between texts. Rather, the translator seeks equivalence between the experience of the current receptors of the translation and the first receptors of the original message: a lofty goal. Some might say, a mirage. The translator must determine what the first readers and hearers thought and felt and then seek to recreate that impact on the intended audience. Nida used the phrase closest natural equivalent to define translation: From the viewpoint of the Bible translator the most satisfactory definition of translation seems to be the closest natural equivalent, first in meaning and secondarily in style.26 While this definition of translation served more than a generation of scholars as either foundation or foil, the lucidity of Nidas copious examples of linguistic and cultural adjustment necessary for communication through translation radically changed the theoretical debate between free and literal translation. In response to criticism and new understandings in linguistics, Nida developed the theory of equivalence with considerable sophistication and finesse beyond the closest natural equivalent as a way of mediating between literal translation and the free translation of ideas.27 In practice the golden mean between literal and free translation created a gap between form and content. Water poured into different shapes of containers is still water. Meaning, Nida argued, was in the content rather than the form.28 However, it is important to consider the rhetorical29 and performative move in creating the very category of equivalence (instead, say, of correspondence) for acts of communication in translation in the first place. Equivalence is a metaphor borrowed from mathematics. For example 2+3+2 = (2+12)/2 = 7. Equivalence in that sense is established abstractly and may be supported by concrete observation. In the realm of translation (and mission), however, the category may create as many problems as it solves.30 Correspondence, on the other hand, is a more open and flexible category, which might have led to a different outcome than the double bind of equivalence:

translators are usually aware of their failure to produce translations that are in a semantic sense equivalent to the original. However, audiences desire translations with authority equal to the original and often appreciate the label equivalent because it means equal meaning and authority. The label equivalence effaces (either by neglect or by unwarranted veneration) the very human participation of the human translators.31 The overall positive effect of Nidas theory was to dislodge the notion of faithfulness as a translation desideratum from its moorings in literal translation and associate faithfulness with dynamic or functional equivalent translations. The principles and practices associated with dynamic or functional equivalence liberated translators from a nagging sense that faithfulness meant adherence to a rigid system of word-byword consistency, especially in relation to biblical and key theological terms.32 Theorists have continued to use equivalence, extending and subtly enriching it. Anthony Pym, for example, suggests that the assumed similarity between source text and translation is what distinguishes translations from all other kinds of texts.33 While it appears undeniable that assumed similarity between source text and target text is a distinctive feature of translation, this is a far cry from equivalence. Pym attempts to rescue equivalence by introducing directional equivalence as opposed to Nidas natural equivalence.34 Directional equivalence, then, is an oxymoronic asymmetric equivalence. This approach has not been very convincing.35 What is the value of an asymmetric equivalence? Better to drop equivalence altogether and speak of asymmetric similarity and difference or perhaps dynamic substitution. Nida himself did not believe perfect equivalence was achievable. Rather, he recommended the closest natural equivalence or functional equivalence. The first indicates that equivalence must always remain approximatemore or less equivalent. The second phrase suggests that equivalence might depend upon the assumed purpose the equivalence is to achieve. In either case, borrowing the word equivalence from mathematics as a metaphor for translation has the effect of creating the expectation of a more dependable kind of outcome than translation can achieve. As Dave Brunn recently wrote, The term dynamic equivalence (also called functional equivalence) is potentially misleading in the same way that the term formal equivalence is. It would be more accurate to call it dynamic (or functional) approximation.36 The practice of translating sacred texts has been a constant source of theoretical reflection from the earliest times. Indeed, the practice of translation remains a risky operation which is always in search of its theory.37 The writers of the New Testament do not appear to have given much thought to equivalence as criterion for their choice of sources for Old Testament quotations. For example, Isaiah has, The people who walk in darkness (Isa 9:2), while Matthew has, The people who sat in darkness (Matt 4:16; cf. Psalm 107:10). These can only be roughly equivalent. Neither Augustine nor Jerome, Christianitys first real theorists of language and translation, thought equivalence with the original was necessarily desirable. Augustine counseled that Latin translations should conform to the Greek Septuagint because (repeating the legend of the Epistle of Aristeas) the inspired Septuagint translation was superior to the Hebrew original and had thus replaced it.38 Jerome, in his Letter to Pammachius, coyly defended his translation practice, saying, Indeed, I not only admit, but freely proclaim that in translation [interpretatione] from the Greek except in the case of Sacred Scripture, where the very order of the words is a mysteryI render not word for word, but sense for sense.39 That is, wherever necessary to maintain a mystery of the church, Jerome would translate in accordance with the preservation of the mystery. For Jerome, differences in translation are harmonized or atoned for by oneness of spirit40 (or the unity of the Spirit).41 Indeed, such concord in the unity of the Spirit demands difference rather than equivalence. Without difference, harmony of spirit is impossible. While it is clear that equivalence is an evangelical ideological notion, it is equally clear that it is not theologically catholic. That is, as the notion of textual equivalence becomes stricter in translation, it may allow proportionately less creative diversity, diversity that is necessary according to Wallss understanding of the translation process in Christianity. And while the translation of Christianitys sacred texts has proceeded along with its missionary advance, it has often been bold translation moves that have fractured previous frozen consensus, disseminated Christianity, and provoked its growth. Sometimes written translation has lagged behind missionary expansion; at other times, written translation has preceded expansion into new territories.42 One should pause to honor Nida and all the good that his theoretical contributions made to translation theory and practice. His constituencies were broad and diverse, and he created a welcoming and hospitable

space for healthy dialogue. His evangelical constituency might not have been able to receive new ideas about translation without equivalence to support departures from literalism. But it remains an ideological formulation. For Christians it should be no surprise that ideology motivates and shapes Bible translation and that translation produces asymmetric similarity and difference in its products. Bilingual individuals have always recognized that something is inevitably lost and found in translation. Translation changes the original text. Whether ideology is at work consciously or unconsciously is no matter. After all, mission may be seen as a sort of ideological promotion, whether of the reign of God or the incarnated life of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Or, if we prefer, we may see Bible translation rooted in the ancient churchs practice of including the other by translating in the earliest liturgical practice, Abba (Aramaic), ho Pater (Greek)! (Mark 14:36; Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). In that context, Maranatha! (1 Cor 16:19) cries out for translation, to borrow a phrase from Derrida,43 even though, ultimately, for Paul an equivalent translation without self-betrayal might not have been possible at the moment he wrote it. From this perspective translational practice is an extension of the liturgical life of the saints, which in all its messy, embodied presence expresses the mission of God. But difficulties arise in the ethics of motives mixed with cultural imperialism. Further complicating this issue, Christians often forget that Bible translations are all-too-human products. Translation is as much a problem as a solution.44 Perhaps this is why a thick fog often surrounds translation. Many consumers of Bible translations around the world are not aware of the fog, but simply read their translations as The Bible or The Word of God with negligible human intervention. In other words, insofar as they are aware their Bible is a translation it isin a potent senseequivalent to the original. However, where Bible translations have proliferatedeach one for a different purpose, market, or audiencethe very significant differences between the translations provoke the nagging question of the unstable relationship between the original and the various translations. This difference is healthy. A multiplicity of versions in prolific mimicry of the original45 serves the vitality of the church in the postcolonial situation by provoking resistance to the false, imperialistic notion that only one translation (or interpretation) of the gospel is possible. Where possible, more translations are better than one. Translational equivalence, as envisioned by Nida as both a stable and objective relationship between texts, cannot stand careful scrutiny. Indeed, the more carefully one questions stable and objective equivalence, the more ideological it appears. Many have attempted to salvage equivalence as a category in translation theory by the addition of the adjective dynamic to equivalence, with a nod to the fact that perfect equivalence is not possible. If we substitute more or less for dynamic, we get closer to the truth. A dynamic equivalence, more-or-less equivalence, approximate equivalence, however would seem to beg the question whether equivalence is the appropriate notion. It is far better to speak of dynamic substitution of one text for another or correspondence with similarity and difference between textsor, rather, similarity and difference between interpretations of texts, since all translation is interpretation.46 Indeed, translation without interpretation is a rudderless ship. Nevertheless, equivalence could yet be a useful notion for translation theory. One may think of equivalence in economic or community terms. That is, it functions by social convention and by performative declaration. For example, the US dollar is trading at 101 yen. Such a notion of equivalence may well be objective but unstable. In that sense a translation may be considered equivalent to the original for certain purposes and not for others, by consensus and agreement. However, there can be no guarantee that such equivalence will be long-lasting. This is more or less the view of Theo Hermans, who, following Gideon Toury in a systemic approach to translation, agrees that norms give objective substance to equivalence. In his view, if a text is accepted as a translation, it follows axiomatically that the relation of equivalence between the translation and its original obtains; norms determine the concrete shape of that equivalence relation in specific instances.47 In this sense all translations would be functional equivalents of their originals as long as the consumers or publishers perceive them as such. Nida is not alone among theorists who define translation in terms of equivalence relations;48 it remains a central concept in translation theory. However, in the aftermath of criticisms of Nidas brand of equivalence, many theorists have ostensibly moved away from it49 to more functional, negotiated, targetaudience centered ideals of translation like Skopos theory.50 Some theorists like Mona Baker use the notion of equivalence for the sake of conveniencebecause most translators are used to it rather than

because it has any theoretical status.51 Others reject the theoretical ideal of equivalence, claiming it is either irrelevant or damaging to theoretical reflection on translation. Mary Snell-Hornby, for example, rejects equivalence as an illusion of symmetry between languages which hardly exists beyond the level of vague approximations and which distorts the basic problems of translation.52 For many translators, the goal of semantic equivalence forever recedes from the realm of attainability, although it may for a time serve as an impetus for hard work. As Miguel de Unamuno so eloquently said in the introduction to J. E. Crawford Flitchs English translation of his Tragic Sense of Life, an idea does not pass from one language to another without change.53 Thus, equivalence is variously regarded as a necessary condition for translation, an obstacle to progress in translation studies, or a useful category for describing translations. Whatever the vicious distractions or sterling virtues engendered by the ideal of equivalence in various paradigms of translation theory, Christian theology and mission need not be dependent on Nidas theoretical formulation of it. At the same time, it should be recognized that the practical, audience focus of dynamic/functional equivalence theorists is an enduring strength of this approach. A more fruitful idea for mission is to consider, following Barth, the function of Scripture as Gods word written in its witness to the Word become flesh. That witness is one, not least, of correspondence. Insofar as Scripture translations bear witness to the Word who is full of grace and truth, they may be equivalent in value and principally derive their value from the effectiveness of that witnessing function. But this notion of equivalence is strictly theological and ecclesial. Faithfulness in translation, then, is best judged as faithful witness in such audience-related terms. A Bible translation, in these terms, functions properly as an extension of the canonical, liturgical life of the church. Certainly, however, many other types of Bible translation are possible, for Christians do not own the Bible. However, Christians do well to consider the Scriptures as a sophisticated gift of grace to the church to introduce people to the life of God revealed in Jesus Christ by helping to bring them to faith, to make them wise for salvation, to make them struggle with awkward questions about violence and the poor, to comfort those in sorrow, and to nourish hope for the redemption of the world.54 These functions will be accomplished best in any population by a variety of types of translations in the service of the church. Yancy Smith is a former church planter for Churches of Christ in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He later planted Emmanuel Fellowship Church in Sweetwater, Texas. He has been a Bible translation consultant for 15 years and currently is the Senior Director, Global Translation Services for Bible League International. He was the primary consultant for the easy-to-read translation into Spanish: La Palabra de Dios para Todos. He is married to Lanette Smith and they have four children: Jennifer, Heather, Matthew, and Kara. Yancy is an elder at Christ Fellowship Church, Fort Worth, a member of the Antioch International Movement of Churches. He holds an MA in New Testament from Abilene Christian University and a PhD in Biblical Interpretation from Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University. Biblography

Abraham, William J. Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology: From the Fathers to Feminism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Arduini, Stefano, and Robert Hodgson, eds. Similarity and Difference in Translation: Proceedings of the International Conference on Similarity and Translation. New York: Guaraldi, 2004. Baker, Mona. In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation. New York: Routledge, 1992. Bevans, Stephen B. Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for Today. American Society of Missiology Series. Kindle ed. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011. Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Routledge Classics. New York: Routledge, 1994.

Boer, Roland. The Dynamic Equivalence Caper. In Ideology, Culture, and Translation, edited by Scott S. Elliott and Roland Boer, 1324. Society of Biblical Literature Semeia Studies 69. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012. Brunn, Dave. One Bible, Many Versions: Are All Translations Created Equal? Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013. Catford, J. C. A Linguistic Theory of Translation: An Essay in Applied Linguistics. Language and Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965. De Unamuno, Miguel. Tragic Sense of Life. Translated by J. E. Crawford Flitch. New York: Cosmo Publishers, 1953. Derrida, Jacques. Des tours de Babel. In Difference in Translation, edited by Joseph F. Graham, 165207. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985. Ehrlich, Arnold B. Genesis und Exodus. Vol. 1 of Randglossen zur Hebrischen Bibel: Textkritisches, Sprachliches und Sachliches. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1908. ESV Bible. Preface to the English Standard Version. About. http://about.esvbible.org/about/preface. Hermans, Theo. Norms of Translation. In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, edited by Carol A. Chapelle. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. http://researchschool.org/documents/Hermans_Norms%20of%20Trl.pdf. Isidore Epstein, ed. Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Kiddushin. Student Manual/Study Guide ed. Translated by H. Freedman. Brooklyn: Soncino Press, 1966. Jerome. Letter to Pammachius. Translated by Kathleen Davis. In The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti, 3rd ed., 2130. New York: Routledge, 2012. Jerome. To Pammachius on the Best Method of Translating. In The Principal Works of St. Jerome. Translated by W. H. Fremantle, G. Lewis, and W. G. Martley. Vol. 6 of A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. New York: The Christian Literature Company, 1893. http://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf206.v.LVII.html.

Kenny, Dorothy. Equivalence. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, edited by Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha, 2nd ed., 9699. New York: Routledge, 2011. Kraft, Charles H., and Marguerite G. Kraft. Christianity in Culture: A Study in Biblical Theologizing in Cross-Cultural Perspective. 25th Anniversary Kindle ed. New York: Orbis Books, 2005. Levine, Michelle. Maimonides Philosophical Exegesis of the Nobles Vision (Exodus 24): A Guide for the Pursuit of Knowledge. The Torah u-Madda Journal 11 (2002 2003): 61106. Monson, Jordan. A Fun Look at a Strange Bible Translation. Missions Untold. http://missionsuntold.com/a-fun-look-at-a-strange-bible-translation. Nida, Eugene A. Bible Translating: An Analysis of Principles and Procedures, with Special Reference to Aboriginal Languages. New York: American Bible Society, 1947. ________. Message and Mission: The Communication of the Christian Faith. Rev. ed. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1990. Nida, Eugene A., and Charles R. Taber. The Theory and Practice of Translation. Helps for Translators 8. New York: American Bible Society, 1974.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Translations. In The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti, 678. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2012. Nord, Christiane. Translating as a Purposeful Activity: Functionalist Approaches Explained. Translation Theories Explained 1. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 1997. Perelman, Cham. The Realm of Rhetoric: Philosophy. Translated by William Kluback. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990. Pym, Anthony. Exploring Translation Theories. New York: Routledge, 2010. Rafael, Vicente L. Targeting Translation: Counterinsurgency and the Weaponization of Language. Social Text 30, no. 4 (2012): 5580.

Ricoeur, Paul. On Translation. Translated by Eileene Brennan. Thinking in Action. Kindle ed. Florence. KY: Routledge, 2006. Roberts, J. J. M. An Evaluation of the NRSV: Demystifying Bible Translation. Insights: A Journal of the Faculty of Austin Seminary 108, no. 2 (1993): 2536, http://bible-researcher.com/roberts1.html. Rowe, C. Kavin. Early Narrative Christology: The Lord in the Gospel of Luke. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009. Sanneh, Lamin. Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture. American Society of Missiology Series 13. New York:

Orbis Books, 1989. Schleiermacher, Friedrich. On the Different Methods of Translating. In The Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti, 4363. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2012. Smalley, William A. Translation as Mission: Bible Translation in the Modern Missionary Movement. The Modern Mission Era, 17921992. Macon, GA: Mercer, 1991. Snell-Hornby, Mary. Translation Studies: An Integrated Approach. Philadelphia: Benjamins, 1988. Sommer, Benjamin D. The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012. ________. Outside in the Teaching Machine. Routledge Classics. New York: Routledge, 1993. Toury, Gideon. In Search of a Theory of Translation. Meaning and Art 2. Tel Aviv: Porter Institute for Poetics & Semiotics, 1980. Walls, Andrew F. The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996. Wendland, Ernst. Exploring Translation TheoriesA Review from the Perspective of Bible Translation. Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 38, no. 2 (2012): 89 128. http://wendlandsite.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/wendland-jnsl-38-2- nr2.pdf. Yoder, John Howard. Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community before the Watching World. Kindle ed. Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press, 2001.

Zogbo, Lyonell. Bible, Jewish and Christian. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, edited by Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha, 2nd ed., 217. New York: Routledge, 2011.

1 Jordan Monson, A Fun Look at a Strange Bible Translation, Missions Untold, http://missionsuntold.com/a-fun-look-at-a-strange-bible-translation. 2 Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996), 26. 3 Ibid. See also Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture, American Society of Missiology Series 13 (New York: Orbis Books, 1989), 17475. 4 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Outside in the Teaching Machine, Routledge Classics (New York: Routledge, 1993), 181. 5 Linguistic hospitality, therefore, is the act of inhabiting the word of the Other paralleled by the act of receiving the word of the Other into ones own home, ones own dwelling. Paul Ricoeur, On Translation, trans. Eileen Brennan, Thinking in Action, Kindle ed. (Florence, KY: Routledge, 2006), Kindle loc. 219. 6 Vicente L. Rafael, Targeting Translation: Counterinsurgency and the Weaponization of Language, Social Text 30, no. 4 (2012): 5580. See also Friedrich Nietzsche, Translations, in The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti, 3rd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2012), 67. Commenting on translation during the Roman imperial period Nietzsche says: Indeed, translation was a form of conquest. 7 From ancient times; see Jerome, Letter to Pammachius, in Venuti, 2130. 8 Eugene A. Nida and Charles R. Taber, The Theory and Practice of Translation, Helps for Translators 8 (New York: American Bible Society, 1974), 10319. 9 Charles H. Kraft and Marguerite G. Kraft, Christianity in Culture: A Study in Biblical Theologizing in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 25th Anniversary Kindle ed. (New York: Orbis Books, 2005), Kindle locs. 15032643. See Dave Brunn, One Bible, Many Versions: Are All Translations Created Equal? (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013), for a clearly written explanation of how both so-called literal and free or dynamic equivalence translations make many more of such adjustments than is commonly supposed. 10 Friedrich Schleiermacher, On the Different Methods of Translating, in Venuti, 4363. 11 Adapted from Isidore Epstein, ed., Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Kiddushin, Student Manual/Study Guide ed., trans. H. Freedman (Brooklyn: Soncino Press, 1966), b. Qiddushin 49a. Our translation refers to the Aramaic Targum Onkelos. 12 Quite a few biblical authors and characters express surprise that humans saw God without dying or fear that they would die because of seeing God; see Gen 32:31, and particularly Exod 24:1011; Judg 6:2223; Judg 13:22; Isa 6:15; also perhaps G

Extracted text from Augustine_s_Case_for_the_Multiplicity_of_Meanings.pdf:

1 Augustines Case for the Multiplicity of Meanings To begin with a rough generalization, one of the deep-rooted assumptions in various modern historical-critical methodologies has been that scriptural texts have one, true, and stable meaning, and that this one, true, and stable meaning is what a (human) author intended and how the original readers/hearers understood it.1 This particular philosophy of meaning has determined how proper exegesis as Wissenschaft is supposed to look like. For example, in their highly-praised commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Davies and Allison say on Matt. 7:25: According to Augustine (dom. mon. 2.24.87),2 the storm that strikes the house built upon the rock stands for calamities and afflictions of everyday life. Indeed, carried away by allegorical fancy, he equates rain with gloomy superstition, rivers with carnal lusts, and winds with rumors. But we may well doubt whether 7:25 was 1) intended by Jesus or 2) understood by Matthew to depict the harsh vicissitudes of normal human existence.3 Why then did Augustine, in his allegorical fancy, suggest other meanings of Matt. 7:25? Can there even be meanings of a text other than the allegedly normative original meaning? Should not Scripture, first and foremost, be restricted to a single, normative meaning?4

1

Literature on this topic is enormous. Some more recent acknowledgements and/or defenses of this assumption are: M.C. Moreland, Historical Criticism: the New Testament, in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation, ed. S.L. Mckenzie, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013): 400a-408b, esp. 401a; and J.A. Fitzmyer, The Interpretation of Scripture: In Defense of the Historical-Critical Method (New York: Paulist, 2009), 66-69, 87-91. 2 The correct reference should be dom. mon. 2.25.87. 3 W.D. Davies and D.C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew. Introduction and Commentary on Matthew I VII, in The International Critical Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), 721, numbers highlighting the theses are added. Even an Augustinian scholar has recently pronounced that the bishops exegesis is scarcely credible by modern literary (or theological) standards, and the allegorical readings he was so fond of have fallen almost completely out of favor in current Christian biblical interpretation (J.D. BeDuhn, Augustines Manichean Dilemma, 2: Making a Catholic Self, 388-401 C.E. Divinations: Rereading late Ancient Religion [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013], 72). 4 For the sake of fairness, it has to be acknowledged that many biblical scholars, trained in historical-criticism, have modified their understanding of how meaning is constituted. They have also started to appreciate the semantic insights offered by patristic authors. Allison, for example, explicitly admits that after his commentary on Matthew (1988), he began to read patristic literature and consequently realized how unfortunate it is that so many in the guild make so little use of older commentators (D.C. Allison, Studies in Matthew: Interpretation Past and Present

2 If one looks at Augustines exegesis, he/she realizes soon enough that the bishop affirmed the very possibility of multiplicity of meanings5 and consequently refused to restrict and commit himself to one, exclusive, original meaning of a text.6 Although his hermeneutical theory took into consideration both the uoluntas auctoris and sententia (the interpreters meaning as distinguished from sensus, the authors meaning), for Augustine, these were not the only and not even the most important criteria for determining the meaning(s) of a scriptural text. For several theoretical and theological reasons, which will be discussed below, he asserted that, in Scripture, one found a vast array of true meanings (multitudine uerorum intellectuum).7 For him, polysemy was not a hermeneutical deficiency,8 but a providential divine gift.9 This article attempts to reconstruct Augustines case for the multiplicity of meanings.10 The very description of Augustines exegetical practice and the (reconstructed) seven reasons for such a practice are taken as his argument for polysemy.

[Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005], 9 and 117-131). Thus, analyzing particular Matthean periscopes, he provides sections with titles, such as Detours in the History of Exegesis, or Opinions from the History of Exegesis. See also D.C. Allison, Matthew and the History of Its Interpretation, The Expository Times 120/1 (2008): 1-7. 5 E.g., conf. 12.13.16-22.31; en. Ps. 118(5).2; exp. Gal. 13.6-7; 17.1-2. In Gn. litt. 1.20.40, Augustine wrote, I have, to the best of my ability, winkled out and presented a great variety of possible meanings the words of the book of Genesis (multipliciter . . . sententias de uerbis) which have been darkly expressed in order to put us through our paces (CSEL 28/1:29, trans. Hill, WSA I/13, 187). 6 In discussing obscure matters that are far removed from our eyes and our experience, which are patient of various explanations (alias atque alias . . . sententias) that do not contradict the faith we are imbued with, let us never, if we read anything on them in the divine scriptures, throw ourselves head over heels into the headstrong assertion of any one of them (in nullam earum nos praecipiti adfirmatione ita proiciamus) (Gn. litt. 1.18.37 [CSEL 28/1:29, trans. Hill, WSA I/13, 185-186; cf. conf. 12.25.35). Downing has shown that, in antiquity, there was actually no urge to restrict meaning to something precise and exclusive. Semantic freedom was a universally appreciated right (F.G. Downing, Ambiguity, Ancient Semantics, and Faith, NTS 56 [2009]: 139-162, at 145-146, 160). 7 Gn. litt. 1.21.41 (CSEL 28/1:31, trans. Hill, WSA I/13, 188); cf. conf. 12.13.16-22.31; 13.24.36-37; ep. 137.3; exp. Gal. 13.6-7; 17.1-2. 8 The desire for scientific objectivity and the fear of the anarchical anything-goes stance caused the hermeneuts of the last centuries (e.g., Dilthey, Hirsch) to strive for a rule-governed interpretative activity which would secure the universally valid single meaning of a text (M. Westphal, Whose Community? Which Interpretation? Philosophical Hermeneutics for the Church, The Church and Postmodern Culture [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009], 15, 3133, 45-50). 9 Isabelle Bochet and Goulven Madec, Pluralit des interprtations scripturaires, in La doctrine chrtienne/De doctrina Christiana, BA 11/2 (Paris: tudes Augustiniennes, 1997): 558-562, at 560. 10 According to my knowledge, this topic has not been addressed before in the form of a full-length article or a book.

3 In addition, since this article operates with the rather contested notion of meaning, it has to be clarified that, in late antiquity and shortly before this, one can find deliberations on language and naming,11 but no abstract treatises on meaning.12 The church fathers did not write any either. Therefore, only by looking at Augustines exegesis one can envision what his theory of meaning might have looked like. It has to be admitted, thought, that it is impossible to attain over-clarity about what Augustine meant by meaning, and how exactly he would have argued his case for the multiplicity of meanings.13 Scripture as a linguistic reality Augustines first reason14 for affirming the multiplicity of meanings emerges from the obvious fact that Scripture exists in human languages. This basic truth implies that everything that is characteristic to language as such applies to Scripture as well.

11

In addition to occasional considerations of meaning in various rhetorical manuals, one should mention Lucretius, De rerum natura (Book 5); Apuleius(?), Peri hermeneias; Proclus, In Platonis Cratylum commentaria; Ammonius, In Aristotelis de interpretatio, and Boethius, Commentarii in librum Aristotelis Peri hermeneias. 12 It could be that Stoics provided more elaborate accounts of meaning, but only fragments of these have survived in later works, such as Sextus Empiricus, Adv. math. 8.11-13 (A. Graeser, The Stoic Theory of Meaning, in Stoics, ed. J.M. Rist [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978]: 77-100). Denotation, image, causal, picture, verification, and use theories of meaning are a modern phenomenon. See The Theory of Meaning, ed. G.H.R. Parkinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968); S.J. Odell, On the Philosophy of Language (Wadsworth: Thomson, 2006), 1-148; A.P. Martinich, Philosophy of Language, in Philosophy of Meaning, Knowledge and Value in the Twentieth Century, ed. J.V. Canfield, Routledge History of Philosophy, vol. 10 (London: Routledge, 1997): 11-38; and M. Richard, Introduction: Conceptions of Meaning, in Meaning, ed. M. Richard, Blackwell Readings in Philosophy (London: Blackwell, 2003): 1-35. Wittgensteins characterization of Augustines perception of language as referential (L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, 3d ed. [Engelwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1958], par. 1) has proved to be a somewhat reductionist account, and perhaps deliberately so (D.G. Stern, Wittgensteins Philosophical Investigations: An Introduction [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004], 72-87.) 13 That much seems clear though that, for Augustine, meaning was not an exclusive property of a text. Rather, meanings suggested by a text were constituted in the interpreters mind in the act of reading/understanding the given text. He said in conf. 13.24.36, I know that . . . the mind can give a multiplicity of meanings to something which, at the physical level, is a single thing (noui . . . et multipliciter mente intellegi, quod uno modo per corpus significatur) (CCL 27:263, trans. Chadwick [Oxford, 1991], 295). That is why understanding is not merely a reproductive but always a productive activity as well (H.-G. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd ed., trans. J. Weinsheimer and D. G. Marshall [New York: Crossroad, 1989, reprint, New York: Continuum, 1995], 296). 14 Not his primary reason, but first in the reconstructed list of reasons as the most general one.

4 Augustine had learned that every word is ambiguous (ambiguum esse omne uerbum).15 Unlike the ancient rhetoricians, however, and while Augustine was talking about scriptural exegesis, he did not have intentional ambivalence (uoluntas) in mind, but rather the ambiguity created by natural linguistic properties (scriptum).16 Ambiguity from scriptum, in turn, could be lexical or syntactic, but it surely generated polysemy and sometimes obvious misinterpretations as well. One of the examples of ambiguity, which Augustine used in De doctrina Christiana, is Phil. 1:23. This passage can be translated as having a desire in two directions (ex duobus concupiscentiam habens) or I am torn in two directions (compellor autem ex duobus).17 The ambiguity of the Greek phrase allowed different interpretations, neither of which was at odds with the faith.18 True, the immediate literary context made the choice quite clear for Augustine, yet ambiguity coming from scriptum had indeed created the possibility of alternative readings and meanings. Another characteristic of linguistic statements, which facilitates polysemy, is that utterances can be obscure. Augustine contended that some words of Scripture by their very obscurity (obscuritate) give rise to a variety of interpretations (multas intellegentias pepererunt).19 Again, I understand you to grant us the capacity and ability to articulate in many

15

Chrysippus, cited in dial. 9 (Aulus Gellius 11.12.1) (Augustine: De dialectica, ed. and trans. B. Darrell Jackson, Synthese Historical Library 16 [Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1975], 106-107). For the philosophical background of Augustines deliberations, see C. Atherton, The Stoics on Ambiguity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); cf. Quintilian, Inst. 7.9.1; Augustine, dial. 810; doctr. chr. 2.6.7-8; 3.1.13.37.56 and an analysis in T. Toom, Augustine on Ambiguity, AugStud 38, no. 2 (2008): 407433. 16 K. Eden, Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition: Chapters in the Ancient Legacy and Its Humanist Reception, in Yale Studies in Hermeneutics (New Haven, 1997), 56-57. 17 Doctr. chr. 3.2.6 (Augustine: De Doctrina Christiana, ed. and trans. R.P.H. Green, Oxford Early Christian Texts [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995], 134- 135). 18 Ibid. 19 En. Ps. 18(2).4 (CCL 38:108, trans. Boulding, WSA III/15, 208). In en. Ps. 74.12, Augustine preaches, The obscurity of Scripture is such that a passage scarcely ever yields a single meaning only (sic se habet obscuritas scripturarum: difficile est ut unum pariant intellectum) (CCL 39:1033, trans. Boulding, WSA III/18, 50) and, in ep.

5 ways (multis modis) what we hold to be a single concept, and to give a plurality of meanings to a single obscure expression in a text we have read (et multis modis intellegere, quod obscure uno modo enuntiatum legerimus).20 In De ciuitate Dei [ciu.] 11.19, Augustine reiterates: The obscurity (obscuritas) of the divine word is beneficial in this respect: that it causes many views (plures sententias) of the truth to appear and to be brought into the light of knowledge, as one reader understands a passage in one way and another in another. Any interpretation of an obscure passage should, however, be confirmed by the testimony of the manifest facts or by passages where the meaning is not in the least open to doubt. In this way we shall, by investigation of several views, either arrive at the meaning intended by whoever wrote the passage, or, failing this, the examination of a profoundly obscure passage will lead to the statement of a number of other truths (sed ex occasione tractandae profundae obscuritatis alia quaedam uera dicantur).21 Ambiguity and obscurity of linguistic statements can never be completely eliminated. Utterances just do not have tightly determined meanings which would successfully prevent all kind of uncertainties.22 There will always remain a leeway for the existence of alternative meanings. Scripture as a system of signs In addition to the first general reason for polysemy, Augustine provides another theoretical justification of plurisignification with his semiotic analysis in the first three books of De doctrina Christiana.23

82.34, he writes, One commentator can explain the same passage in different ways (aliter atque aliter) in accord with the same faith because the obscurity of the texts allows this (quia hoc eius obscuritas patitur) (CSEL 38:386, trans. Teske, Letters, WSA II/1, 333). 20 Conf. 13.24.37 (CCL 27:264, trans. Chadwick [Oxford, 1991], 296). 21 CCL 48:337-338, trans. Dyson (Cambridge, 1998), 472-473; cf. conf. 12.22.31. 22 This is amply demonstrated by Augustines clarifications of his own corrective statements in Retractationes. 23 B.D. Jackson, Semantics and Hermeneutics in Saint Augustines De doctrina Christiana, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1967, 87-193; K. Kahnert, Entmachtung der Zeichen? Augustin ber Sprache, in

6 A particular element in Augustines scientia signorum, which is relevant for showing how multiplicity of meanings come about, is his discussion of the second-level signification.24 Words as signs (signa) point to realities (res). Or, said in a semiotic discourse, signs which consist of linguistic signifiers and their conceptual signifieds, designate the referents.25 However, the res, the referents, can also take on a further function of signifying in which they themselves become signa2 (doctr. chr. 2.10.15; cf. Heb. 8:5). Augustine offered an example of how the word ox could be used for an animal, which in turn could stand for an evangelist. While the first referent is provided by a conventional code of a natural language, the second must be provided by a system different from the given language, or by employing a larger system of denotation. Such res-turned-into-signum, or res2, is called res significans,26 or figura,27 and it inaugurates a virtually endless chain of significations.28 Augustine pointed out that, in Scripture, both res and uerba signify more than one idea or meaning (e.g., cons. eu. 2.72; doctr. Chr. 3.26.37-3.27.38).

Bochumer Studien zur Philosophie, vol. 29 (Amsterdam: B. R. Grner, 2000), 85-114; G. Manetti, Theories of Sign in Classical Antiquity, trans. C. Richardson, Advances in Semiotics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 157-168; and K. Pollmann, Doctrina Christiana: Untersuchungen zu den Anfngen der christlichen Hermeneutik unter besonderer Bercksichtigung von Augustinus, De doctrina christiana, in Paradosis: Beitrge zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur und Theologie, vol. 41 (Freiburg, Switzerland: Universittsverlag, 1996), 147-196. 24 Cary has shown that while Greeks had a vocabulary to differentiate between semiotics and semantics, Latinspeaking authors employed the word signum for both. Consequently, the blurring of semiotics (inference) and semantics (meaning) came really easy to Latin speakers, including Augustine (P. Cary, Outward Signs: The Powerlessness of External Things in Augustines Thought [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008], 19 and 70). 25 S. Witting, A Theory of Multiple Meanings, Semeia 7 (1977): 75-103. 26 Doctr. chr. 3.9.13 (Augustine: De Doctrina Christiana, ed. and trans. R.P.H. Green, 146). For the relation between res significans and Christology, see M. Cameron, The Christological Substructure of Augustines Figurative Exegesis, in Augustine and the Bible, ed. and trans. P. Bright. The Bible Through the Ages, vol. 2 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999): 74-103, at 90-92. 27 R.W. Bernard, The Rhetoric of God in the Figurative Exegesis of Augustine, in Biblical Hermeneutics in Historical Perspective, ed. M.S. Burrows and P. Rorem (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991): 88-99. 28 When Morgan and Barton assert that a Bible that can mean anything means nothing (R. Morgan and J. Barton, Biblical Interpretation [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988], 13), they are not thereby denying the multiplicity of meanings, but indicate quite rightly that true meanings have their limits. Vanhoozer seconds, Be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:28) is hardly a mandate for hermeneutical license (K.J. Vanhoozer, Four Theological Faces of Biblical Interpretation, in Reading Scripture with the Church: Toward a Hermeneutic for Theological Interpretation, ed. A.K.M. Adam et al. [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006], 132; cf. conf. 13.24.37; Gn. adu. Man. 1.19.30), because not all multiplication of meaning proves fruitful. Therefore, an important caveat: Augustine postulated carefully a set of hermeneutical controls, such as regula dilectionis and regula fidei, which helped to avoid total semantic relativity. Despite allowing various interpretations, he could also say, No, this is not the right

7 Scripture and reuse of texts The third reason among the more general reasons for polysemy concerns the diachronic aspect of semantics. Meanings multiply in time as texts are used for other purposes than they were originally intended. For example, the originally non- or pre-Christian texts (i.e., the Hebrew Scriptures29) were used for Christian purposes. In addition, modern form and source critics distinguish between the earlier strata of textual units, which are incorporated by an author or a redactor to the given text and additionally, in the case of Scripture, are included to a collection of texts (i.e., to the canon). All this alters, at least to some extent, the meaning(s) of texts, minimizes the importance of authorial intention, and relativizes the notion of the original meaning of these texts. 30 Augustine certainly realized that one and the same text could function in various contexts and times independently from its original purpose and authorial intention. Although knowing all too well that the Books of Psalms was a literature of ancient Israelites, he asserted confidently, This psalm . . . is not concerned with Israelites.31 By saying so, he was not trying to agitate the Jews. Rather, he was concerned with the Psalms continuously edifying use for his Christian congregants.32

interpretation (en. Ps. 68[2].14 [CCL 39: 927; trans. Boulding, WSA III/17, 396]; cf. c. ep. Man. 6; Gn. adu. Man. 2.7.8; Io. eu. tr. 18.1; util. cred. 14.31). 29 A delicate balance between the elements of continuity and discontinuity of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Old Testament, including the issues of texts, their scope, and order, are discussed in a chapter The Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Bible in B.S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979): 659-671. 30 Texts . . . have been used and reused many times, and the attempt to fix an original meaning is more or less bound to fail (J. Barton, The Nature of Biblical Criticism [Louisville: John Knox, 2007], 79). 31 En. Ps. 70(1).2 (CCL 39: 942, trans. Boulding, WSA III/17, 415). 32 For a closer analysis of the Christian use of Psalms, see M. Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere: Augustines Early Figurative Exegesis, in Oxford Studies in Historical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 169186.

8 Augustine learned about the reuse of texts from Scripture itself.33 Most significantly, the New Testament continued the tradition of reusing Old Testament texts in a new context as well as interpreting them from a new perspective. A particularly clear case is Pauls reuse of the exodus tradition in 1 Cor. 10:1-11 (e.g., en. Ps. 143.1). Then, in De utilitate credendi (util. cred.) 3.8, Augustine considered Matt. 12:39-40 (the sign of prophet Jonah), 1 Cor. 10:1-11 (Christ as the spiritual rock), and Gal. 4:22-26 (Abrahams two wives) as the biblical examples of reusing texts/events in a figurative sense. In en. Ps. 33(1).3, he likewise mentioned manna as a figure of spiritual food (1 Cor. 10:3), the parting of the sea as the figure of baptism (1 Cor. 10:1-2), the rock as the figure of Christ (1 Cor. 10:4), and Abrahams two sons as the figures of the two covenants (Gal. 4:24). Thats how Apostle Paul re-read Scripture (i.e., the Old Testament); thats the apostle after whom Origen patterned his exegesis,34 from whom Ambrose, in turn, adopted it, and finally, from whom Augustine learned it.35 This was the holy exegetical succession. The fact that texts are constantly reused in new contexts shows, among other things, that their meaning is in no way frozen to their original Sitz im Leben. An appreciation of this fact, in turn, has led contemporary hermeneuts to speak about the semantic autonomy of texts36 and

33

Within the Old Testament, texts were re-used in new contexts and in this process, they gained new meanings. The so-called royal Psalms came to mean something different (i.e., the expected Messiah) after monarchy was abolished in 586 BC. The prophet Isaiah investigated what the exodus account from Egypt might have meant for those who returned from the exile in Babylon (Isa. 48). See M. Fishbane, Inner-Bibilcal Exegesis, in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Interpretation: Volume 1: From the Beginning to the Middle Ages (Until 1300) (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 33-48; E. Menn, Inner-Biblical Exegesis in the Tanak, in A History of Biblical Interpretation. Volume I: The Ancient Period, ed. A.J. Hauser and D.F. Watson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 55-79; G. Stemberger, From Inner-Biblical Interpretation to Rabbinic Exegesis, in The New Cambridge History of the Bible, Vol. 1: From the Beginnings to 600, ed. J.C. Paget and J. Schaper (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 190-217. 34 For Origens appeal to Apostle Pauls example, see P.W. Martens, Origen and Scripture: Contours of the Exegetical Life, in Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 83-86. 35 Conf. 5.13.23-24; Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere, 23-29. For a qualification, see G. Wills, Augustines Confessions: A Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 55-57. 36 P. Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976), 32. By autonomy, Ricoeur does not mean any kind of total independence where the author plays no role at all.

9 the phenomenon of iterability.37 In addition, audiences of texts are indeterminate or universalized.38 The author has no control over who reads his/her text. Potentially anyone can interpret it. Texts . . . have no rights . . . They can be used in whatever way readers or interpreters choose.39 In other words, a text has to be rendered usable in other situations than the original historical circumstances, the authorial intention, and the understanding of the immediate audience. The text frees its meaning from the tutelage of the mental intention, it frees its reference from the limits of situational reference, writes Ricoeur.40 And this certainly increases the possibility of multiple meanings of a text.41 It should be added, though, that diachronically constituted meanings do not erase the original meaning, but rather reveal its further significance.42 In Contra Faustum Manicheum (c. Faust.) 18.4, Augustine mentioned the Old Testament laws, and in en. Ps. 113(1).1, the Psalms, and then contended that the true signification of both were manifested at the end of times.43

37 38

J. Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, trans. A. Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 315316. Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 31; Ibid., Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action, and Interpretation, ed. and trans. J.B. Thompson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 139. 39 Morgan and Barton, Biblical Interpretation, 7. 40 Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 36. Gadamer, too, contends that meaning does not depend on the contingences of the author and his original audience. It certainly is not identical with them . . . (Gadamer, Truth and Method, 296). 41 The opportunity for multiple readings is the dialectical counterpart of the semantic autonomy of the text (Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 32). For comparison, it is an undeniable fact of life that there are no absolutely identical performances of a musical piece, although the given piece is usually recognizableunless it is the US National Anthem sung by some contemporary artists before a football game. A music score is normative not in the sense that it prohibits various interpretations, but rather in the sense that it secures the sameness of the piece. However much it [i.e., a composition] is transformed and distorted in being presented, it still remains itself (Gadamer, Truth and Method, 122; cf. Westphal, Whose Community? Which Interpretation?, 102-105). 42 Leithart offers a neat and clear example. At 10.00am, an assassin shoots a gun and hits his target. At 1.00pm, the victim dies at hospital. The meaning of the past event changed from 10.00am to 1.00pm, from a mere shooting to a murder. That is, the former event is brought into relation with a subsequent event and it acquires further, even a new significance (P.J. Leithart, Deep Exegesis: The Mystery of Reading Scripture [Waco: Baylor University Press, 2009], 41-43). 43 CCL 40:1635; trans. Boulding, WSA III/19, 304-305.

10 The first three general reasons for polysemy alone suffice to demonstrate that texts can and do have many true meanings.44 To reiterate, Scripture as a linguistic entity is inevitably ambiguous and obscure and as such, its meanings cannot be strictly determined. Second, semiotic processes open up the possibility of semantic pluralism. Third, texts function meaningfully in different contexts and for different purposes. All these reasons suggest that the phenomenon of multiplicity of meanings is a consequence of linguistic, semiotic, and semantic features of texts. However, Augustines thoughts hardly ever moved in a theology-free zone.45 In the case of the art of interpretation, Augustines theological justifications were intimately linked to his doctrine of Scripture.46 After all, it is a truism that what Scripture is believed to be inevitably determines the way it is approached and interpreted. Accordingly, Augustines perception of Scripture as uerbum or sermo Dei (cf. 1 Thess. 2:13) had its important hermeneutical implications. Scripture and the double intentionality The first reason for polysemy which grows out of Augustines doctrine of Scripture is that Scripture is a double-authored text and consequently, there are two authorial intentions that

44

For example, in conf. 12.20.29 and 12.21.30, Augustine lists five possible (true) meanings of Gen. 1:1 and 1:2, and then contends in 12.30.41 that texts indeed contain a diversity of true meanings. 45 Fowl assesses, For the most part, the various interpretative practices common in the pre-modern period arise from Christian theological convictions (S. Fowl, Theological Interpretation of Scripture [Eugene: Cascade, 2009], 16). 46 Bochet has pointed out the relative lack of studies on Augustines concept of Scripture and then provides one of her own (I. Bochet, Le firmament de l'criture: l'hermneutique augustinienne, in Collection des tudes augustiniennes, Srie Antiquit 172 [Paris: Institut dtudes augustiniennes, 2004], 11-12, 33-53). See also P. Bright, St. Augustine, in Christian Theologies of the Scripture: A Comparative Introduction, ed. J.S. Holcomb (New York: New York University Press, 2006): 39-59; A.D.R. Polman, The Word of God According to St. Augustine (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), 39-74; and T. Toom, Augustine and Scripture, in Augustine and Modern Theology, ed. C.C. Pecknold and T. Toom (London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2013): 75-90.

11 need to be considered, the divine and the human.47 For exegetes of the Word of God, the divine intention matters more than the human intention. Signa divinitus data matter more than signa data.48 Augustine explicitly asserted, True God-fearers are conscientious about seeking Gods will (or intention) (deum uoluntatem) in Scripture.49 To make his case, in c. Faust. 22.83, Augustine appealed to a scriptural example.50 Caiaphas, with his harmful and pernicious intention suggested that it was better for one man to die than the whole people perish (John 11:50).51 However, the evangelist clarified, He said this not of his own, but being the high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for his people (John 11:51). There is an utterance itself and Gods use of that utterance. Put differently, we have an utterance according to human authorial intention, which is then employed (or, reused) by the evangelist who communicates the alleged divine intention of these very same words. So, in case a human authorial intention can be figured out and yet meanings are discerned, which do not match with it, these additional meanings may still be true and legitimate. They are true and legitimate when they are compatible with the regula fidei, regula dilectionis, and with the other passages in Scripture. Another classic although non-scriptural case where the alleged divine intention overruled the human intention was the famous words tolle, lege in conf. 8.12.29.52 This time, the interpreter

47

A more thorough assessment of the issue of double intentionality can be found in T. Toom, Was Augustine an Intentionalist? Authorial Intention in Augustines Hermeneutics, SP 70/18 (2013): 185-193. The double intentionality comes into play in addition to the fact that there can also be a plurality of communicative intentions (e.g., Gn. litt. 1.19.38) and at times, authorial intention just cannot be figured out (conf. 12.24.33; mag. 13.42.1416). However, when authorial intention is not explicitly stated and when contextual clues, such as phrasing (doctr. chr. 3.2.2-4.8), intonation (ciu. 16.6; doctr. chr. 3.3.6), and gesticulation (en. Ps. 34[2].11) happen to be unavailable, there are no secret files attached to texts which would inform readers about it. 48 Doctr. chr. 2.2.3 (Augustine: De Doctrina Christiana, ed. and trans. R.P.H. Green, 58). 49 Doctr. chr. 3.1.1 (Augustine: De Doctrina Christiana, ed. and trans. R.P.H. Green, 132-133); cf. 2.5.6; 2.9.14; conf. 12.23.32, 32.43; en. Ps. 36(3).2. 50 Cameron has drawn my attention to this example in his Christ Meets Me Everywhere, 275. 51 C. Faust. 22.83 (CSEL 25/1:686, trans. Teske, WSA I/20, 360). 52 CCL 27:131.

12 Augustine had no idea what the authorial intention of the child who happened to shout these words was. The human authorial intention simply did not govern the meaning of the given utterance in that situation.53 For Augustine, tolle, lege meant a divine command to pick up the Letter to Romans and read Chapter 13, verses 13-14. Augustine was quite convinced that the Spirit of God could intend meanings which human authors (if at all known) were not able to intend (conf. 12.32.43). Consequently, to follow the letter in the sense of being limited to human authorial intention and not to discern the intention of the Spirit, was nothing but a carnal way (carnaliter) of understanding Scripture.54 It was so because what ultimately mattered was what God intended to say to the hearers of the Word at any time and place, rather than what human co-authors wanted to say to their immediate audiences.55 True, a skilled exegete was never supposed to neglect the human co-authorial communicative intentions,56 but neither was one supposed to be limited to them (doctr. chr. 1.36.40).57 To reiterate the current point, Augustines conviction about the double authorship of and intentionality in Scripture means that he had to allow other meanings of scriptural texts besides the ones intended by their human co-authors.58 Scripture and its Christological interpretation The second and one might add a rather controversial reason for polysemy which grows out of Augustines doctrine of Scripture is that the Old Testament has to be read

53 54

Cf. ciu. 11.19 and Gn. litt. 1.21.41. Doctr. chr. 3.5.9 (Augustine: De Doctrina Christiana, ed. and trans. R.P.H. Green, 140-141). 55 For comparison, in Mark 10:2-9, Jesus pointed out the divine intention of the written law of Moses. 56 Conf. 12.18.27; 12.23.32; 12.25.35; cons. eu. 2.12.2; 2.28.67; 2.46.97; doctr. chr. 1.36.41; 2.12.18; 3.27.38. 57 Allison writes that those hoping to recover and assent to nothing but the original intentions of Matthew are misguided, for the world in which those intentions were at home has ceased to be: we live in a different time and a different place (Matthew and the History of Its Interpretation, 6). 58 Bochet, Le firmament de l'criture, 49-50.

13 Christologically.59 1 Pet. 1:11 stated the basic Christian conviction that the Holy Writ was testifying in advance to the sufferings coming to Christ and his subsequent glories.60 Such conviction enabled Christians to use the Hebrew Scriptures as (part of the) Christian Scripture. Christological/figurative interpretation of the Old Testament, however, required the texts to have multiple meanings. After all, only figurative interpretations enabled Augustine to hold a view that almost all the truth of the Gospel could be found in the Old Testament (c. Adim. 3.4 [retr. 1.22(21)]; c. Faust. 12.7). Augustine famously claimed, Christ meets and refreshes me everywhere in these books (Christus mihi ubique illorum librorum . . . occurrit et reficit)61 and mentioned the resurrection of our Lord as being the reason why a Christian should seek a spiritual understanding of the Old Testament.62 Augustine also contended that Ps. 80:1 testified to Christ and his church, the total mystery with which all the Scriptures are concerned (confitetur . . . totum omnium scripturarum mysterium Christum et ecclesiam).63

59

Fiedrowicz points out that mysterium Christi had the hermeneutische Schlsselfunktion for patristic interpreters (M. Fiedrowicz, Prinzipien der Schriftauslegung in der Alten Kirche [Bern: Peter Lang, 1998], xi). Gusdorf, in turn, observes that the emergence of Christianity brought about a seismic hermeneutical shift in the interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures (G. Gusdorf, Les origines de lhermneutique [Paris: Payot, 1988], 54-56). De Lubac, too, has argued persuasively that figurative (i.e., Christological) interpretation is precisely the way a Christian should approach the Old Testament (The Sources of Revelation, trans. L. ONeill [New York: Herder and Herder, 1968], 159-194). Even Fitzmyer, in his defense of the historical-critical method, grants that what is valid in the patristic interpretation is the continuation of the christological meaning of the OT given by inspired NT writers (The Interpretation of Scripture, 93). Long before the authors, Origen contended that the Good News caused all things to appear as gospel (Comm. Jo. 1.18 [SC 120:66, trans. Heine, FC 80, 36), and Augustine seconded, All of the divine scripture that was written before the Lords coming [i.e., the Old Testament] was written to announce that coming (cat. rud. 4.8 [CCL 46:128, trans. Canning, The Augustine Series 5, 70). Cf. cons. eu. 1.1.1. 60 Cf. Luke 24:27, 44; Heb. 1:5, 2:5-9. 61 C. Faust. 12.27 (CSEL 25/1:366, trans. Teske, WSA I/20, 143). 62 Doctr. chr. 3.9.13 (Augustine: De Doctrina Christiana, ed. and trans. R.P.H. Green, 146-147). Likewise, in doctr. chr. 3.22.32, Augustine mentions the Lords coming (Augustine: De Doctrina Christiana, ed. and trans. R.P.H. Green, 164-165), after which much of what the Old Testament speaks about in a literal way, also has the additional figurative; that is, Christological meaning. Again, in ciu. 18.28-39, Augustine goes through various Minor Prophets in order to show how these spoke about Jesus Christ. Such passages cannot be dismissed as somewhat strange and unnecessary excursus in the otherwise fascinating diatribe of Augustine, because they are as insightful for Augustines Christological approach as is, for example, Contra Faustum. 63 En. Ps. 79.1 (CCL 39:1111; trans. Boulding, WSA III/18, 141).

14 Again, it was the New Testament that planted the idea of Christological interpretation into Augustines mind. Passages such as John 5:46 (If you believed in Moses, you would believe in me, for he wrote of me) and Luke 24:27 (cf. 24:44) (Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself) suggested this particular interpretative stance as Jesus own hermeneutical approach.64 Augustine deliberated, In the prophets he was proclaiming himself, for he is the Word of God, and everything they said was full of the Word of God.65 The result was that while Christians were reading the Old Testament, they were not just reading the History of Israel or the Religion in Ancient Palestine,66 but a very long first book of the New Testament.67 So, once again, Augustine was not breaking new ground with his insistence on Christological interpretation. He was merely following the apostolic68 and post-apostolic hermeneutical practice.69 If this gets into ones headas it perhaps should for Christiansthat the Old Testament is about Christ, he/she operates with a fundamental hermeneutical preunderstanding that determines, to a large extent, his/her interpretation of this sacred collection of texts. Such 64 65

Referred to in C. Faust. 4.4, 12.3, 16.1, 22.69. En. Ps. 142.1 (CCL 40:2060, trans. Boulding, WSA III/20, 344). 66 A similar point is made by R.B. Hays, The Conversation of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israels Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 9. 67 The title of Chapter Eight in Camerons Christ Meets Me Everywhere is The Old Testament as the First Book of the New (251) and, in the third century, Origen claimed that both [Testaments] are the New Testament for us (Hom. Num. 9.4.2 [SC 415:240, trans. Scheck, ACT [Downers Grove, 2009], 39). Such a claim was and is hermeneuticalthe Hebrew Scriptures can be and are, in fact, read as Christian Scripture. 68 Apostle Paul used a rhetorical device of metalpsis which evoked Christological resonances in the Old Testament texts in addition to their original meaning (R.B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989], 14-21; and H. Hbner, Intertextualittdie hermeneutische Strategie des Paulus, TLZ 166 [1991]: 881-898, at 886-887). 69 Examples can easily be multiplied, but perhaps the first Christian post-canonical text to make the global claim that the whole Old Testament was about Christ was the Epistle of Barnabas. The whole Law of Moses was a parable about Christ and his kingdom (6.8-19). The same point was allegedly made in Ariston of Pellas lost Iasonos kai Papiskou antilogia peri Christou (Origen, c. Cels. 4.52; Eusebius, HE 4.6.3). Next, Irenaeus wrote that anyone who read Scripture with attention would find in them a discourse about Christ (haer. 4.26.1), and that the words of Moses can be referred to as the words of Christ (4.2.3). The first testimonia type of treatises that are knownCyprians Ad Quirinum and Melito of Sardis six books (no longer extant)consisted of Old Testament citations concerning the Savior and our faith (Eusebius, HE 4.26.13 [GCS, Eusebius Werke 2/1:387; trans. is my own). Jerome, too, pointed out that Christ was prefigured in the Law and Prophets (ep. 53.14). Cassian, in turn, contended that the whole Scripture was written with reference to the incarnation of Christ (Inc. 4.7).

15 preunderstanding, in turn, necessitates the existence of multiple meanings70 and the iterability of texts, as well as affirms the usefulness of figurative interpretation. To summarize, seeing Christ everywhere in the Old Testament (c. Faust. 12.27) was not an embarrassing blunder of the hermeneutically nave primitive church, but rather a very Christian way of making (Christological) sense of the Old Testament.71 Its a consequence of the belief that the veil is removed in Christ (2 Cor. 3:14-16; util. cred. 3.9), that the Old Testament events are the shadow of the things to come (Col. 2:17; c. Faust. 6.2, 32.9), and that the New Testament is in the Old Testament as fruit is in the root (tamquam fructus in radice).72 Scripture and its spiritual utility The third reason for polysemy which grows out of Augustines doctrine of Scripture, is: in order that all Scripture might be spiritually useful (phelimos, utilis; 2 Tim. 3:16),73 figurative meanings beyond strictly Christological interpretations should be allowed. It is a troubling question indeed: how can all the accounts of wars, killings, rapes, and murders, which are narrated in the Old Testament, be spiritually useful? Origen had an answer: The most wonderful thing is that by means of stories of wars and the conquerors and the conquered certain secret truths are revealed to those who are capable of examining these narratives.74 Augustine 70

Steinmetz gets at something truly important when he contends that [o]nly by confessing the multiple senses of the Scripture is it possible for the church to make use of the Hebrew Bible at all (D. Steinmetz, The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis, Ex Auditu 1 [1985]: 74-82, at 78). Augustine would have concurred; cf. Gusdorf, Les origines de lhermneutique, 56. 71 Good examples of Augustines sophisticated techniques of figurative/Christological interpretation can be found in s. 341 (Dolbeau 22), which is about how obscurities can be avoided in Scripture by investigating how it speaks about Christ (i.e., Christ in his divine nature; Christ incarnated, and totus Christus), and the prosopological exegesis in en. Ps. 37.6, where Christ spoke 1) of himself, or 2) as the representative of human beings, or 3) both together as the head of the church. 72 En. Ps. 72.1 (CCL 39:986, trans. Boulding, WSA III/17, 470). A rather unique Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007) meticulously covers the practice of reinterpreting the Old Testament texts in the entire New Testament. 73 Referred to in s. 23.3 and spec. 40; cf. Michael Graves, The Inspiration and Interpretation of Scripture: What the Early Church Can Teach Us (Grand Rapid: Eerdmans, 2014), 17-22. 74 Origen, PArch. 4.2.8 (H. Ggermanns and H. Karpp, Origenes: Vier Bcher von den Prinzipien, 3d ed. [Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1992], 724-725; trans. Butterworth [Gloucester, 1973], 284-285).

16 agreed with Origen about the usefulness of the divine reading (utilitatem diuinae lectionis),75 for precisely figurative interpretation turned the signa data of the Old Testament into the useful signs (signa utilia).76 He wrote, If . . . no other way is available of reaching an understanding of what is written that is religious and worthy of God, except by supposing that it has all been set before us in a figurative sense and in riddles (figurate atque in aenigmatibus), we have the authority of apostles (habentes auctoritatem apostolicam) for doing this, seeing that they solved so many riddles in the books of the Old Testament in this manner.77 Augustine considered scriptural texts as sort of wrappedup parcels which have something important concealed inside [them].78 Think of it in this way: the verses of the psalm which have been proclaimed but not yet expounded are like tightly-wrapped parcels that have been brought along from the divine giver.79 Such perception suited well with a Platonic conviction that sensible reality was an image or sign of the intelligible reality,80 as well as with the late antique cultural assumption that language was always invested with a meaning that preceded, went beyond, or even differed from the uttered words themselves.81 On the other hand, if the legitimacy of figurative reading is denied, then Hebrew Scriptures are vulnerable to being

Clark reiterates that allegory . . . allows any Biblical text to be brought within the religious experience of the Christian believer (E. Clark, Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999], 85-86). 75 C. Faust. 13.18 (CSEL 25/1:401,