1. THERE are certain rules for the interpretation of Scripture that I think might with great advantage be taught to earnest students of the word, that they may profit not only from reading the works of others who have laid open the secrets of the sacred writings, but also be able themselves to open such secrets to others. These rules I propose to teach to those who are able and willing to learn, if God our Lord does not keep it from me, while I write, the thoughts He is accustomed to allow me in my meditations on this subject. But before I start this work, I think it a good thing to answer the objections of those who are likely to take exception to the work, or who would do so, if I did not conciliate them before. And if, after all, men should still be found to make objections, yet at least they will not prevail with others (over whom they might have influence, did they not find the others prepared against their attacks), to turn them back from a useful study to the dull laziness of ignorance.

2. There are some, then, likely to object to this work of mine, because they have failed to understand the rules here laid down. Others, again, will think that I have wasted my time, because, though they understand the rules, yet in their attempts to apply those rules and to interpret Scripture using them, such men have failed to clear up the point they wish cleared up; and these, because they have received no assistance from this work themselves, will give it as their opinion that it can be of no use to anybody else. There is a third class of objectors who either really do understand Scripture well, or think they do, and who, because they know (or imagine) that they have attained a certain ability to interpret the sacred books without reading any directions of the kind that I propose here, will protest that such rules are not necessary for anyone, but that everything correctly done in the task of clearing up the obscurities of Scripture could be better done through the unassisted grace of God.

3. To reply briefly to all these. To those who do not understand what is here set down, my answer is that I am not to be blamed for their lack of understanding. It is just as if they were anxious to see the new or the old moon, or some very obscure star, and I should point it out with my finger: if they could not see well enough to make out even my finger, they would clearly have no right to be angry with me for that reason. As for those who, even though they know and understand my directions, fail to penetrate the meaning of obscure passages in Scripture, they may stand for those who, in the case I have imagined, are just able to see my finger, but cannot see the stars at which it is pointed. And so both these groups ought to stop blaming me, and ask instead that God might give them the power to see. For though I can move my finger to point out an object, I am unable power to open men's eyes that they may see either the fact that I am pointing, or the object at which I point.

4. But now as to those who talk proudly of Divine Grace, and boast that they understand and can explain Scripture without the aid of such directions as those I now propose to offer, and who think, for that reason, that what I have undertaken to write is entirely useless. I would like such people to calm themselves down, remembering that, however correctly they may feel happy in God's great gift, yet it was from human teachers they themselves learned to read. Now, they would hardly think it right that they should for that dependency on others be contemptuously compared to the Egyptian monk Antony, a just and holy man, who, not being able to read himself, is said to have committed the Scriptures to memory through hearing them read by others, and by virtue of wise meditation to have arrived at a thorough understanding of them; or by that barbarian slave Christianus, about whom I have lately heard from very respectable and trustworthy witnesses: he, without any teaching from man, attained a full knowledge of the art of reading simply through prayer that it might be revealed to him; after three days' supplication obtaining his request that he might read through a book presented to him on the spot by the astonished bystanders.

5. But if any one thinks that these stories are false, I do not strongly insist on them. For, as I am addressing Christians who profess to understand the Scriptures without any directions from man (and if the fact be so, they boast about a real advantage, of no ordinary kind), they must certainly concede that every one of us learned their own language by hearing it constantly from childhood, and that any other language we have learned--Greek, or Hebrew, or any of the rest--we have learned either in the same way, by hearing it spoken, or from a human teacher. Now, then, suppose we advise all our brothers and sisters not to teach their children any of these things, because when the Holy Spirit poured out on the apostles, they immediately began to speak the language of every race [Acts 2]; and suppose we tell everyone who has not had a similar experience that they do not need to consider themselves Christians, or may at least doubt whether they have yet received the Holy Spirit? No, no; rather let us do away with lying arrogance and learn whatever can be learned from fellow humans; and let him who teaches another communicate what he has himself received without pretensions and without jealousy. And do not let us provoke God, in whom we have believed, so that, being caught by such tricks of the enemy, Satan, and by our own perversity, we might even refuse to go to church to hear the gospel itself, or to read a book, or to listen to another person reading or preaching, in the hope that we shall be carried up to the third heaven, "whether in the body or out of the body," as the Apostle Paul says [2 Corinthians 12:2], and there hear words that cannot be spoken, such as those not permitted for anyone to utter, or see the Lord Jesus Christ and hear the gospel from His own lips rather than from those of men.

6. Let us beware of such dangerous temptations of pride, and let us rather consider the fact that the Apostle Paul himself, although struck down and criticized by the voice of God from heaven, was still sent to a man to receive the sacraments and be admitted into the Church [Acts 9]; and that Cornelius the centurion, although an angel announced to him that his prayers were heard and his generosity to the poor had been remembered, was still handed over to Peter for instruction, and not only received the sacraments from the apostle's hands, but was also instructed by him as to the proper objects of faith, hope, and love [Acts 10]. And doubtlessly everything could have been done through the instrumentality of angels, but the nature of our human race would not have been worth much if God had refused to make use of people as the ministers of His word to their fellow-humans. For how could that be true which is written, "The temple of God is holy, which temple you are"[1 Corinthians 3:16], if God pronounced no messages from His human temple, but communicated everything that He wished to be taught to men by voices from heaven, or through His immediaries, angels? Moreover, love itself, which binds all together in the bond of unity, would have no means of pouring soul into soul, and, as it were, mingling them one with another, if no one ever learned anything from other humans.

7. And we know from the Bible that the eunuch who was reading Isaiah the prophet, and did not understand what he read, was not sent by the apostle to an angel, nor was it an angel who explained to him what he did not understand, nor was he inwardly illuminated by the grace of God without interacting with a man; on the contrary, at the suggestion of God, Philip, who did understand the prophet Isaiah, came to the eunuch, and sat with him, and in human words, and with a human tongue, opened to him the Scriptures [Acts 8:26-39]. Did not God talk with Moses, and yet he, with great wisdom and entire absence of jealous pride, accepted the plan of his father-in-law (Jethro), a man of an alien race, for ruling and administering the great nation entrusted to him? [Exodus 18:17-23] For Moses knew that a wise plan, from whatever mind it might originate, was to be ascribed not to the man who devised it, but to Him who is the Truth, the unchangeable God.

8. In the last place, every one who boasts that he, through divine illumination, understands the obscurities of Scripture, though not instructed in any rules of interpretation, at the same time he believes, and rightly believes, that this power is not his own, in the sense of originating with himself, but is the gift of God. For so he seeks God's glory, not his own. But reading and understanding, as he does, without the aid of any human interpreter, why does he by himself try to interpret for others? Why doesn't he rather send them directly to God, so that they too may learn through the inward teaching of the Spirit, without the help of humanity? The truth is, he fears to earn the reproach: "You wicked and lazy servant, you ought to have given my money to bankers, that it might bear interest" [Matthew 25:27]. Seeing, then, that these men teach others, either through speech or writing, what they themselves understand, they really cannot blame me if I similarly teach, not only what they understand, but also the rules of interpretation that they follow. For no one ought to consider anything his own, except perhaps what is a lie. All truth belongs to Him who says, "I am the truth" [John 14:6]. For what have we that we did not receive? and if we have received it, why do we boast, as if we had not received it? [possibly John 5:43-45]

Book II, Chapter 18.
NO HELP IS TO BE DESPISED, EVEN THOUGH IT COME FROM A PROFANE SOURCE.

28. But whether the fact is as Varro has described or is not so, still we ought not to give up music because of the superstition of pagans, if we can derive anything from it that is of use for the understanding of Holy Scripture. It doesn't follow, in the same way, that we must occupy ourselves with their theatrical outrage because we have begun an investigation about harps and other instruments, that may help us to lay hold on spiritual things. For we ought not to refuse to learn letters because they say that Mercury discovered them; nor because they have dedicated temples to Justice and Virtue, and because they prefer to worship in the shape of stones things that ought to have their place in the heart, should we because of that abandon justice and virtue. No, let every good and true Christian understand that wherever truth is found, it belongs to his Master; and while he recognizes and acknowledges the truth, even in their religious literature, at the same time let him reject the figments of superstition; and let him regret and avoid men who, "when they knew God, glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things" [Romans 1:22-24].

From J.J. O'Donnell's page on Augustine (the University of Pennsylvania):