Augustine on Genesis

From his De Genesi contra Manichaeos (his first exegetical commentary, written in AD 388/9) to De Genesi ad litteram (written between ad 401 and 415) and books 11 and 12 of De civitate Dei (written around ad 417), Augustine displays a remarkably sustained interest in struggling to understand correctly the beginning of Genesis (Staritz 1931: 153-7). Equally striking is the broad variety of genres he employs. We can identify at least five stages in his approach to the text. First, we have his antiheretical commentary against the Manichees, in which, to save the Old Testament from the Manichean accusation that it is both incorrect and obscene, he uses partly

Ambrose’s allegorical method (Dulaey 2002: 276-85). Then there is the incomplete, literal commentary De Genesi ad litteram liber unus imperfectus (written in ad 393/4) and books 11 to 13 of the quasi-autobiographical Confessions (written around AD 400), in which he interprets Genesis, again in a mainly allegorical fashion, as an account of the culmination and fulfillment of a Christian life (Pollmann 2005: 217-18). In the complete commentary De Genesi ad litteram, he insists on a rigorous ‘‘literal’’ interpretation of the text. Finally, in the encyclopedic theology of universal history in De civitate Dei, he uses Genesis in books 11 and 12 as the template for expounding the beginning of history (and again favors a literal interpretation that can be properly understood only in the light of De Genesi ad litteram:. Taylor 1982, i: 4).

Generally speaking, Augustine’s strength, unlike Jerome’s, does not lie in a close philological reading of the text. He often relies on the conclusions of others, and uses scriptural interpretation to prove or illustrate a preoccupying point of interest, be it the refutation of a heresy, the demonstration of a spiritual Christian life, or a historical-philosophical point. Let me illustrate more particularly the development outlined in the preceding paragraph.

In De Genesi contra Manichaeos, Augustine uses predominantly an allegorical method of interpretation against the Manichees, because this method is particularly suited to both refuting the Manichees’ material dualism and proving the spirituality of God and the mutual interdependence of the Old and the New Testaments. Augustine's attitude is polemical and exegetically confident (for instance, in De Gen. c. Man. 1. 1. 1; 1. 2. 5; 1. 5. 9). This contrasts sharply with the Liber imperfectus, in which he repeatedly emphasizes that he feels very insecure, facing the difficult task of providing a sustained literal interpretation of Genesis. Already in the first chapter, he calls the random fashion of claiming an uncertain and dubious opinion (temeritas adserendae incertae dubiaeque opinionis) a great crime; a sentiment echoed, for instance, in chapter 8: ‘‘one must not confirm anything at random (nihil... temere adfirman-dum).’’ This lack of confidence explains why he abandoned the project (Retract. 1. 10. 1, although in 1. 18 he decides to preserve the fragmentary commentary as evidence of a certain stage in his intellectual development).

Although the exegetical methods in De Genesi contra Manichaeos and the Liber imperfectus are partly different, the individual interpretations often differ less, since even in De Genesi contra Manichaeos Augustine s approach is not always allegorical. Differences arise rather from the different contexts of the two commentaries: in the ‘‘orthodox ’’ Liber imperfectus, Augustine integrates the Trinitarian dogma and treats all biblical passages relatively evenly in his exegesis; in De Genesi contra Manichaeos, on the other hand, he does not pay much attention to verses that are irrelevant for his antiheretical purpose. For example, in the commentary contra Manichaeos (1. 11. 17), commenting on Genesis 1: 6-8, Augustine says that he does not recall (non memini) that the Manichees used to criticize these verses; then he continues with a very brief literal(!) explanation that the firmament separates the invisible from the visible waters. He concludes by adding that this obscure matter has to be believed before it is understood (antequam intellegatur, credenda est). In Liber imperfectus 8-9, in contrast, his explanations of these verses are far more extensive, designed to demonstrate that the biblical account of God creating the firmament and separating the waters is compatible with pagan cosmological concepts. But here he is far more tentative in his argumentation, allowing for a plurality of opinions and urging his readers to be constantly aware of their human deficiency, which will never permit complete understanding of divine works (Lib. imperf. 9: eligat quis quod potest; tantum ne aliquid temere atque incognitum pro cognito afferat memineritque se hominem de divinis operibus quantum permittitur quaerere).

In books 11-13 of the Confessions, an interpretation of the first seven days of creation that moves from a literal to an allegorical exegesis (Muller 1998: 614) rounds off Augustine’s quasi-autobiographical Christian portrait. The setting of the exegesis of Genesis in the Confessions is not a commentary in the narrow sense but is completely different in its interpretive focus. Scientific and cosmological aspects are less relevant, and Augustine concentrates rather on the existential relationship between human beings, who owe their existence to their creator, and God, the free and gracious creator of all nature. Thus, the three major theological issues dealt with in these books in connection with the interpretation of Genesis are the theology of grace, the human spiritual connection with God, and eschatology (Muller 1998: 619-20).

Augustine further develops these elements in De Genesi ad litteram, now by using predominantly the literal interpretive method (justified, for instance, in 8. 4. 8,9. 11. 22, and 11. 1. 2), which represents an enormous intellectual and methodological progress since the Liber imperfectus of ten years earlier. Methodologically, De Genesi ad litteram is strongly influenced by Eustathius’ Latin translation of Basil’s Hexae-meron. In Hex. 3. 9 and 9.1, Basil champions against Origen a literal interpretation of Genesis (Staritz 1931: 36; Vannier 1987: 376-7). Augustine has a notion of‘‘literal’’ that is not immediately apparent to the modern reader: according to him, the literal meaning of a text explores or explains faithfully what really happened ( De Gen. ad litt. 1. 1. 1). But, due to the specific quality of the narrative of the first chapters of Genesis, which tell about something that happens for the first time, the truest ‘‘literal’’ sense in that instance (as in some others) is the spiritual one (8. 1. 2). So, paradise has both a literal and a spiritual reality, since, in principle, Scripture can have a literal and a figurative meaning (8. 1. 1). In 4. 28. 45, Augustine explains that the literal sense is the truest sense of Scripture: ‘‘light’’ in Genesis 1: 3-4, for example, is neither material nor metaphorical light, but spiritual light, and therefore the spiritual understanding of this light reveals the true and appropriate ‘‘literal’’ meaning of the text. In other words, one has to consider carefully the differing contexts of different verses of Scripture and its purposes (10. 7. 12). Scripture does not provide, for example, an exhaustive guide to the nature of the soul (10. 10. 17).

In De Genesi ad litteram, Augustine starts from different exegetical premises than Basil and Ambrose to develop a much more nuanced, ambitious, and adequate way of coping exegetically with the specific nature of Genesis - which is neither myth nor purely historical narrative - and of taking into account the role of the reader (5. 6. 19) and the nature of the text which is silent regarding certain issues (5. 8. 23). In general, De Genesi ad litteram is directed at a more educated reader than is Basil’s, and even Ambrose’s, Hexaemeron. It aims at explaining how the works and laws of nature can be synthesized with a philosophical understanding of cause (the Stoic rationes seminales) and with the theological notion of God’s foreknowledge (De Gen. ad litt. 6. 16. 27-8). Unlike Basil and Ambrose, Augustine uses the natural sciences

Only very rarely for moral edification: instead of claiming that thorns and other natural things unpleasant or dangerous to humanity acquired those qualities only after the Fall, he stresses that these creatures are dangerous to human beings precisely because of the latter’s fallen state (3. 17. 26 to 3. 18. 28, and 8. 10. 21). For Augustine, characteristically, the disadvantages that follow upon the Fall are due entirely to humanity itself.

In De Genesi ad litteram, Augustine combines his previous three exegetical attempts, using the didactic genre of the line-by-line commentary - as in De Genesi contra Manichaeos and the Liber imperfectus - but combining it with rather contemplative digressions that remind one of the Confessions. Compared with the De Genesi contra Manichaeos, the mature approach of De Genesi ad litteram shows the widening of Augustine’s outlook and his characteristic combination of various central theological issues. He explicitly corrects, at least once, the view he expressed in De Genesi contra Manichaeos (De Gen. ad litt. 8. 2. 5); but, as already in the Liber imperfectus, he combines a dogmatic analysis of the Trinity with the interpretation of the creation narrative. As, again, in the Liber imperfectus, he feels insecure, and eventually has to admit in Retractationes 1. 18 and 2. 24. 1 that this commentary raised more questions than it answered. But quite apart from this revocation of his earlier thought, he emphasizes quite frequently the fluidity and liminality of his interpretive results. Other people or later generations, he assumes, will be able to come up with something better (De Gen. ad litt. 1. 18. 37; 7. 28. 42-3; 9. 1. 1-2; 10. 18. 33). He believes, in other words, in intellectual progress, and sees exegesis as providing a necessary escape from human deficiency. Exegesis has to be, therefore, by its very nature, tentative and incomplete: it is governed by an eschatological suspense, a confidence that words and signs will disappear, when we see the true word, Jesus Christ (August. En evang. Johan., tract. 35. 9).

In De civitate Dei, books 11 and 12, we have again a strikingly different context for Augustine’s exegesis: namely, a gigantic attempt to describe the destined beginnings, progress, and end of the history of the world. Augustine uses symbolic-allegorical interpretations of various verses of Genesis to illustrate that the Scriptures are a means, although not the only one, to explain the origin of the world (O’Daly 1999: 136-7, 141-50).

Generally, Augustine is of the opinion that biblical exegesis is not really able to tell us anything fundamentally new: rather, it serves to educate in a moral and intellectual way (Fladerer 1999: 127-8). So, his aim as an exegete is relatively modest: his interpretation aims at finding the truth or at least at saying something tolerable about the Bible (De Gen. ad litt. 7. 1. 1; 10. 3. 4; similarly in De civ. D. 11. 19 and in his hermeneutical treatise De doctr. chr., preface 9. 18).