The intercourse and agreement with demons which superstitious
observances maintain
And all these omens are of force just so far as has been arranged
with the devils by that previous understanding in the mind which
is, as it were, the common language, but they are all full of
hurtful curiosity, torturing anxiety, and deadly slavery. For
it was not because they had meaning that they were attended to,
but it was by attending to and marking them that they came to
have meaning. And so they are made different for different people,
according to their several notions and prejudices. For those
spirits which are bent upon deceiving, take care to provide for
each person the same sort of omens as they see his own conjectures
and preconceptions have already entangled him in. For, to take
an illustration, the same figure of the letter X, which is made
in the shape of a cross, means one thing among the Greeks and
another among the Latins, not by nature, but by agreement and
prearrangement as to its signification; and so, any one who knows
both languages uses this letter in a different sense when writing
to a Greek from that in which he uses it when writing to a Latin.
And the same sound, beta, which is the name of a letter among
the Greeks, is the name of a vegetable among the Latins; and
when I say, lege, these two syllables mean one thing to a Greek
and another to a Latin. Now, just as all these signs affect the
mind according to the arrangements of the community in which
each man lives, and affect different men's minds differently,
because these arrangements are different; and as, further, men
did not agree upon them as signs because they were already significant,
but on the contrary they are now significant because men have
agreed upon them; in the same way also, those signs by which
the ruinous intercourse with devils is maintained have meaning
just in proportion to each man's observations. And this appears
quite plainly in the rites of the augurs; for they, both before
they observe the omens and after they have completed their observations,
take pains not to see the flight or hear the cries of birds,
because these omens are of no significance apart from the previous
arrangement in the mind of the observer.
In human institutions which are not superstitious, there are
some things superfluous and some convenient and necessary
But when all these have been cut away and rooted out of the mind
of the Christian, we must then look at human institutions which
are not superstitious, that is, such as are not set up in association
with devils, but by men in association with one another. For
all arrangements that are in force among men, because they have
agreed among themselves that they should be in force, are human
institutions; and of these, some are matters of superfluity and
luxury, some of convenience and necessity. For if those signs
which the actors make in dancing were of force by nature, and
not by the arrangement and agreement of men, the public crier
would not in former times have announced to the people of Carthage,
while the pantomime was dancing, what it was he meant to express,
-- a thing still remembered by many old men from whom we have
frequently heard it. And we may well believe this, because even
now, if any one who is unaccustomed to such follies goes into
the theatre, unless some one tells him what these movements mean,
he will give his whole attention to them in vain. Yet all men
aim at a certain degree of likeness in their choice of signs,
that the signs may as far as possible be like the things they
signify. But because one thing may resemble another in many ways,
such signs are not always of the same significance among men,
except when they have mutually agreed upon them. But in regard
to pictures and statues, and other works of this kind, which
are intended as representations of things, nobody makes a mistake,
especially if they are executed by skilled artists, but every
one, as soon as he sees the likenesses recognizes the things
they are likenesses of. And this whole class are to be reckoned
among the superfluous devices of men, unless when it is a matter
of importance to inquire in regard to any of them, for what reason,
where, when, and by whose authority it was made. Finally, the
thousands of fables and fictions, in whose lies men take delight,
are human devices, and nothing is to be considered more peculiarly
man's own and derived from himself than, anything that is false
and lying. Among the convenient and necessary arrangements of
men with men are to be reckoned whatever differences they choose
to make in bodily dress and ornament for the purpose of distinguishing
sex or rank; and the countless varieties of signs without which
human intercourse either could not be carried on at all, or would
be carried on at great inconvenience; and the arrangements as
to weights and measures, and the stamping and weighing of coins,
which are peculiar to each state and people,and other things
of the same kind. Now these, if they were not devices of men,
would not be different in different nations, and could not be
changed among particular nations at the discretion of their respective
sovereigns. This whole class of human arrangements, which are
of convenience for the necessary intercourse of life, the Christian
is not by any means to neglect, but on the contrary should pay
a sufficient degree of attention to them, and keep them in memory.
What human contrivances we are to adopt, and what we are to avoid
For certain institutions of men are in a sort of way representations
and likenesses of natural objects. And of these, such as have
relation to fellowship with devils must, as has been said, be
utterly rejected and held in detestation; those, on the other
hand, which relate to the mutual intercourse of men, are, so
far as they are not matters of luxury and superfluity, to be
adopted, especially the forms of the letters which are necessary
for reading, and the various languages as far as is required
-- a matter I have spoken of above. To this class also belong
shorthand characters, those who are acquainted with which are
called shorthand writers. All these are useful, and there is
nothing unlawful in learning them, nor do they involve us in
superstition, or enervate us by luxury, if they only occupy our
minds so far as not to stand in the way of more important objects
to which they ought to be subservient.
Some departments of knowledge,
not of mere human invention, aid us in interpreting Scripture
But, coming to the Next
point, we are not to reckon among human
institutions those things which men have handed down to us, not
as arrangements of their own, but as the resell of investigation
into the occurrences of the past, and into the arrangements of
God's providence. And of these, some pertain to the bodily senses,
some to the intellect. Those which are reached by the bodily
senses we either believe on testimony, or perceive when they
are pointed out to us, or infer from experience.
To what extent history is an
aid
Anything, then, that we learn from history about the chronology
of past times assists us very much in understanding the Scriptures,
even if it be learnt without the pale of the Church as a matter
of childish instruction. For we frequently seek information about
a variety of matters by use of the Olympiads, and the names of
the consuls; and ignorance of the consulship in which our Lord
was born, and that in which He suffered, has led some into the
error of supposing that He was forty-six years of age when He
suffered, that being the number of years He was told by the Jews
the temple (which He took as a symbol of His body) was in building.
Now we know on the authority of the evangelist that He was about
thirty years of age when He was baptized; but the number of years
He lived afterwards, although by putting His actions together
we can make it out, yet that no shadow of doubt might arise from
another source, can be ascertained more clearly and more certainly
from a comparison of profane history with the gospel. It will
still be evident, however, that it was not without a purpose
it was said that the temple was forty and six years in building;
so that, as this cannot be referred to our Lord's age, it may
be referred to the more secret formation of the body which, for
our sakes, the only begotten Son of God, by whom all things were
made, condescended to put on. 43. As to the utility of history,
moreover, passing over the Greeks, what a great question our
own Ambrose has set at rest! For, when the readers and admirers
of Plato dared calumniously to assert that our Lord Jesus Christ
learnt all those sayings of His, which they are compelled to
admire and praise, from the books of Plato -- because (they urged)
it cannot be denied that Plato lived long before the coming of
our Lord! -- did not the illustrious bishop, when by his investigations
into profane history he had discovered that Plato made a journey
into Egypt at the time when Jeremiah the prophet was there, show
that it is much more likely that Plato was through Jeremiah's
means initiated into our literature, so as to be able to teach
and write those views of his which are so justly praised? For
not even Pythagoras himself, from whose successors these men
assert Plato learnt theology, lived at a date prior to the books
of that Hebrew race, among whom the worship of one God sprang
up, and of whom as concerning the flesh our Lord came. And thus,
when we reflect upon the dates, it becomes much more probable
that those philosophers learnt whatever they said that was good
and true from our literature, than that the Lord Jesus Christ
learnt from the writings of Plato, -- a thing which it is the
height of folly to believe. 44. And even when in the course of
an historical narrative former institutions of men are described,
the history itself is not to be reckoned among human institutions;
because things that are past and gone and cannot be undone are
to be reckoned as belonging to the course of time, of which God
is the author and governor. For it is one thing to tell what
has been done, another to show what ought to be done. History
narrates what has been done, faithfully and with advantage; but
the books of the haruspices, and all writings of the same kind,
aim at teaching what ought to be done or observed, using the
boldness of an adviser, not the fidelity of a narrator.
To what extent natural science is an exegetical aid
There is also a species of narrative resembling description,
in which not a past but an existing state of things is made known
to those who are ignorant of it. To this species belongs all
that has been written about the situation of places, and the
nature of animals, trees, herbs, stones, and other bodies. And
of this species I have treated above, and have shown that this
kind of knowledge is serviceable in solving the difficulties
of Scripture, not that these objects are to be used conformably
to certain signs as nostrums or the instruments of superstition;
for that kind of knowledge I have already set aside as distinct
from the lawful and free kind now spoken of. For it is one thing
to say: If you bruise down this herb and drink it, it will remove
the pain from your stomach; and another to say: If you hang this
herb round your neck, it will remove the pain from your stomach.
In the former case the wholesome mixture is approved of, in the
latter the superstitious charm is condemned; although indeed,
where incantations and invocations and marks are not used, it
is frequently doubtful whether the thing that is tied or fixed
in any way to the body to cure it, acts by a natural virtue,
in which case it may be freely used; or acts by a sort of charm,
in which case it becomes the Christian to avoid it the more carefully,
the more efficacious it may seem to be. But when the reason why
a thing is of virtue does not appear, the intention with which
it is used is of great importance, at least in healing or in
tempering bodies, whether in medicine or in agriculture. The
knowledge of the stars, again, is not a matter of narration,
but of description. Very few of these, however, are mentioned
in Scripture. And as the course of the moon, which is regularly
employed in reference to celebrating the anniversary of our Lord's
passion, is known to most people; so the rising and setting and
other movements of the rest of the heavenly bodies are thoroughly
known to very few. And this knowledge, although in itself it
involves no superstition, renders very little, indeed almost
no assistance, in the interpretation of Holy Scripture, and by
engaging the attention unprofitably is a hindrance rather; and
as it is closely related to the very pernicious error of the
diviners of the fates, it is more convenient and becoming to
neglect it. it involves, moreover, in addition to a description
of the present state of things, something like a narrative of
the past also; because one may go back from the present position
and motion of the stars, and trace by rule their past movements.
It involves also regular anticipations of the future, not in
the way of forebodings and omens, but by way of sure calculation;
not with the design of drawing any information from them as to
our own acts and fates, in the absurd fashion of the genethliaci,
but only as to the motions of the heavenly bodies themselves.
For, as the man who computes the moon's age can tell, when he
has found out her age today, what her age was any number of years
ago, or what will be her age any number of years hence, in just
the same way men who are skilled in such computations are accustomed
to answer like questions about every one of the heavenly bodies.
And I have stated what my views are about all this knowledge,
so far as regards its utility.
What the mechanical arts contribute to exegetics
Further, as to the remaining arts, whether those by which something
is made which, when the effort of the workman is over, remains
as a result of his work, as, for example, a house, a bench, a
dish, and other things of that kind; or those which, so to speak,
assist God in His operations, as medicine, and agriculture, and
navigation: or those whose sole result is an action, as dancing,
and racing, and wrestling; -- in all these arts experience teaches
us to infer the future from the past. For no man who is skilled
in any of these arts moves his limbs in any operation without
connecting the memory of the past with the expectation of the
future. Now of these arts a very superficial and cursory knowledge
is to be acquired, not with a view to practicing them (unless
some duty compel us, a matter on which I do not touch at present),
but with a view to forming a judgement about them, that we may
not be wholly ignorant of what Scripture means to convey when
it employs figures of speech derived from these arts.
Use of dialectics. Of fallacies
There remain those branches of knowledge which pertain not to
the bodily senses, but to the intellect, among which the science
of reasoning and that of number are the chief. The science of
reasoning is of very great service in searching into and unravelling
all sorts of questions that come up in Scripture, only in the
use of it we must guard against the love of wrangling, and the
childish vanity of entrapping an adversary. For there are many
of what are called sophisms, inferences in reasoning that are
false, and yet so close an imitation of the true, as to deceive
not only dull people, but clever men too, when they are not on
their guard. For example, one man lays before another with whom
he is talking, the proposition, "What I am, you are not."
The other assents, for the proposition is in part true, the one
man being cunning and the other simple. Then the first speaker
adds: "I am a man;" and when the other has given his
assent to this also, the first draws his conclusion: "Then
you are not a man." Now at this sort of ensnaring arguments,
Scripture, as I judge, expresses detestation in that place where
it is said, "There is one that showeth wisdom in words,
and is hated;" although, indeed, a style of speech which
is not intended to entrap, but only aims at verbal ornamentation
more than is consistent with seriousness of purpose, is also
called sophistical. There are also valid processes of reasoning
which lead to false conclusions, by following out to its logical
consequences the error of the man with whom one is arguing; and
these conclusions are sometimes drawn by a good and learned man,
with the object of making the person from whose error these consequences
result, feel ashamed of them, and of thus leading him to give
up his error, when he finds that if he wishes to retain his old
opinion, he must of necessity also hold other opinions which
he condemns. For example, the apostle did not draw true conclusions
when he said, "Then is Christ not risen," and again,
"Then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain;"
and further on drew other inferences which are all utterly false;
for Christ has risen, the preaching of those who declared this
fact was not in vain, nor was their faith in vain who had believed
it. But all these false inferences followed legitimately from
the opinion of those who said that there is no resurrection of
the dead. These inferences, then, being repudiated as false,
it follows that since they would be true if the dead rise not,
there will be a resurrection of the dead. As, then, valid conclusions
may be drawn not only from true but from false propositions,
the laws of valid reasoning may easily be learnt in the schools,
outside the pale of the Church. But the truth of propositions
must be inquired into in the sacred books of the Church.