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the faithful narrative of these events” (21). Speaking more generally, Augustine insists that proper interpretation of the Old Testament must attend to the historical meaning before moving on to higher allegorical levels: “I do not censure those who may have been able to carve out some spiritual interpretation from every historical fact re‐ counted [in the Bible], so long as they take good care first and fore‐ most to adhere to the historical fact” (XVII.3). By arguing thus, Au‐ gustine puts a limit on bizarre and fanciful allegorical readings, while protecting the integrity and authority of the literal meaning of the inspired Word of God.
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he seriousness with which Augustine takes up the interpreta‐ tion of scripture is both bracing and instructive. By following his example, the twenty‐first century church can regain its respect and awe for the Bible as God’s unchanging Word in a chang‐ ing world. Indeed, if we are to understand the nature of our world and ourselves—including the ever‐contending domains of the City of God and the City of Man—then we must (to borrow a distinction from Chesterton’s Orthodoxy) learn again to trust the timeless truths of the Bible and doubt our own historical moment. Augustine, living in a time of political, social, and cultural ferment, did just that and was inspired with a vision of the greater forces that propel history forward and of the final telos (purposeful end) of the human person. Those forces and that telos Augustine found in the Bible, but he en‐ countered them first in the Aeneid of Virgil and the dialogues of Pla‐ to. Though Augustine’s faith in the absolute authority and centrality of the Bible was as great as that of Luther or Calvin, he never suc‐ cumbed to a temptation to which many heirs of the Protestant Reformation have fallen prey: that of treating the Bible as the sole source of truth and thereby dismissing other, non‐Christian theologi‐ cal, philosophical, and ethical writings as potential sources of wis‐ dom. In The City of God, Augustine avoids this temptation while sim‐ ultaneously avoiding its opposite—a relativistic, inclusivist approach that treats the Bible as merely one text among many. Instead, Augus‐ tine uses the Bible as a touchstone to measure the claims made not only by the pre‐Christian writers of Greece and Rome but the Stoics and Neo‐Platonists of his own day as well. Books V‐VII of the Confessions explain the origin of Augustine’s finely‐honed talent for discerning the merits and dangers of non‐ 11