Preface.
Showing that to teach rules for the
interpretation of Scripture is not a superfluous task.
1. There
are certain rules for the interpretation of Scripture which 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 from themselves opening such secrets to others. These rules
I propose to teach to those who are able and willing to learn, if
God our Lord do not withhold from me, while I write, the thoughts
He is wont to vouchsafe to me in my meditations on this subject. But before I enter upon this undertaking, I think it well to meet the objections of those who are likely to take exception to the work, or who would do so, did I not conciliate them beforehand. 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 them forearmed against their assaults), to turn them back from a useful study to the dull sloth 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 spent my labor to no purpose, because, though they
understand the rules, yet in their attempts to apply them and to
interpret Scripture by them, they 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. 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 power of interpreting the sacred books without
reading any directions of the kind that I propose to lay down here, will cry out that such rules are not necessary for any one, but that everything rightly done towards clearing up the obscurities of Scripture could be better done by 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 want 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 had not sight enough to see even my
finger, they would surely have no right to fly into a passion with
me on that account. 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 classes had
better give up blaming me, and pray instead that God would grant
them the sight of their eyes. For though I can move my finger to
point out an object, it is out of my 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
vauntingly of Divine Grace, and boast that they understand and can
explain Scripture without the aid of such directions as those I now
propose to lay down, and who think, therefore, that what I have
undertaken to write is entirely superfluous. I would such persons
could calm themselves so far as to remember that, however justly
they may rejoice in God’s great gift, yet it was from human
teachers they themselves learnt to read. Now, they would hardly
think it right that they should for that reason be held in contempt
by 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 dint of wise
meditation to have arrived at a
thorough understanding of them; or by that barbarian slave Christianus, of whom I have lately heard from very respectable and trustworthy witnesses, who, 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.