Biblical Interpretation

‘There is a kind of eloquence’, maintained St Augustine,

That noted Augustinian, Blaise Pascal, wrote of the Christian Revelation more tersely: ‘There is enough light for those who desire only to see, and enough darkness for those of a contrary disposition.’ (Pascal 1966: Pensée 149) The paradigm of sacred eloquence for Augustine is, of course, that of Christ, and there are echoes here of two Dominical sayings: one is the use of Isaiah vi 9–10 to account for the obscurity of the parables as devices to conceal (Matthew xiii 10–16; Mark iv 11–12; Luke viii 10; see also John xii 37–40); the other is the indication towards the end of the Johannine farewell discourses that so far ‘I have said these things (ταvτα) to you in figures’ (ἐν παϱοιµíαις; ‘in dark sayings’) though a time is coming when it will be be appropriate to ‘tell you plainly (παϱϱησíᾳ) of the Father’ (John xvi 25); here the obscurity can more properly be conceived of as ‘salutary’.