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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 June 2018
The parallel between Augustine's preoccupation with language and the ‘linguistic turn’ of the last century has made him a valuable figure in recent discussions on hermeneutics and meaning. Still, he has yet to be brought into serious conversation with contemporary narrative hermeneutics. In this essay, I contend that narrative hermeneutics provides a lens through which we can appreciate the important role narrative plays in Augustine's hermeneutics and, in particular, how it shapes his account of meaning. Rather than casting his perception of meaning as a static reality that lies completely beyond the text, recognising the place of narrative in his thought allows us to appreciate the dynamic and personal aspects of meaning which it produces.
1 The literature dealing with Augustine and postmodernism is vast. I only mention two of the more significant works here: Caputo, John D. and Scanlon, Michael J. (eds), Augustine and Postmodernism: Confessions and Circumfession (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005)Google Scholar; and Boeve, L., Lamberigts, M. and Wisse, M. (eds), Augustine and Postmodern Thought: A New Alliance Against Modernity (Leuven: Peeters, 2009)Google Scholar.
2 This is seen most clearly in thinkers such as Wittgenstein and Ricoeur, but Augustine has been a key player in a range of more recent theological engagements with postmodern thought as well, ranging from works on hermeneutics (such as Vanhoozer, Kevin, Is There a Meaning in This Text? The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999)Google Scholar) to works focused more squarely on Augustine (such as Rigby, Paul, The Theology of Augustine's Confessions (Cambridge: CUP, 2015))CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the term ‘linguistic turn’, see Rorty, Richard (ed.), The Linguistic Turn: Essays in Philosophical Method (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967)Google Scholar.
3 Young, Frances, ‘Augustine's Hermeneutics and Postmodern Criticism’, Interpretation 1 (2004), p. 44Google Scholar.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., p. 42.
6 Scanlon, Michael J., ‘Augustine and Theology as Rhetoric’, Augustinian Studies 25 (1994), p. 38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 It is worth noting that none of the works which address Augustine and postmodernism give any serious consideration to the theme of narrative.
8 There is a copious amount of literature dedicated to Augustine's sign theory. Yet, by and large, his theory is presented as if meaning lies only beyond the text. For the standard treatments, see Markus, R. A., ‘Augustine on Signs’, Phronesis 2 (1957), pp. 60–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Jackson, Darrel B., ‘The Theory of Signs in St. Augustine's De doctrina christiana’, Revue des études augistiniennes 15 (1969), pp. 9–50Google Scholar. While Markus in particular does allow for development in Augustine's sign theory toward a kind of incarnational and trinitarian model, he never abandons the assumption that meaning, for Augustine, is something that remains completely external to the signs.
9 Todorov, Tzvetan, Grammaire du Décaméron (Paris: Mouton, 1969)Google Scholar.
10 As an illustration of the influence of narrative studies, it is worth noting a few of the interdisciplinary book series that have been produced in recent years: Studies in Narrative (John Benjamins), Theory and Interpretation of Narrative (Ohio State University Press), Narratiologia (de Gruyter) and Frontiers of Narrative (University of Nebraska Press). Also worth mentioning is Herman, David, Jahn, Manfred and Ryan, Marie-Laure (eds), Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory (New York: Routledge, 2004)Google Scholar.
11 See Brockmeier, Jens and Meretoja, Hanna, ‘Understanding Narrative Hermeneutics’, Storyworlds 6/2 (2014)Google Scholar. Gadamer speaks of this shift as an ‘existential turn’ or ‘ontological turn’ in Gadamer, Hans-George, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald Marshall, 2nd edn (New York: Continuum, 1997), pp. 259–64Google Scholar.
12 Brockmeier, ‘Understanding’, p. 11.
13 Ibid., p. 2.
14 See Rorty, Richard, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: CUP, 1989), p. 13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 Felski, Rita, The Limits of Critique (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), pp. 32–3, 15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 Gadamer, Truth and Method, p. 296.
17 While the influence of classical rhetorical theory on Augustine's thought has been widely recognised at least since Henri-Irenée Marrou's classic, Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique, 4th edn (Paris: Éditions E. de Boccard, 1958), not until recently has scholarship begun to explore the importance of rhetoric for Augustine's hermeneutics in particular. This is a welcome development, since Augustine himself speaks of scripture as eloquia divina (Ep. 82.5). Strauss, Gerhard (Schriftgebrauch, Schriftauslegung, und Schriftbeweis bei Augustin (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1959), esp. pp. 74–148)Google Scholar, was the first to point out the rhetorical nature of Augustine's perspective on scripture. However, it has only been in the past three decades or so that this observation has been developed in any significant way. Robert W. Bernard, for example, explored the idea of God as author of both scripture and history in ‘The Rhetoric of God in the Figurative Exegesis of St. Augustine’, in Burrows, Mark S. and Rorem, Paul (eds), Biblical Hermeneutics in Historical Perspective: Studies in Honor of Karlfried Froehlich on his Sixtieth Birthday (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 88–99Google Scholar. Kathy Eden and Robert Dodaro have also examined particular aspects of Augustine's rhetorical vision of scripture. For Eden's most important contributions, see ‘The Rhetorical Tradition and Augustinian Hermeneutics in De doctrina Christiana’, Rhetorica 8 (1990), pp. 45–63; ‘Economy in the Hermeneutics of Late Antiquity’, Studies in the Literary Imagination 28 (1995), pp. 13–26; and Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition: Chapters in the Ancient Legacy and its Humanist Reception (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995). For Dodaro's contributions, see ‘Literary Decorum in Scriptural Exegesis: Augustine of Hippo, Epistula 138’, in L'esegesi dei Padri latini: dalle origini a Gregorio Magno: XXVIII Incontro di studiosi dell'antichità cristiana, Roma, 6–8 maggio 1999 (Rome: Institutum patristicum Augustiniana, 2000), vol. 1, pp. 159–74; ‘Quid deceat videre (Cicero, Orator 70): Literary Propriety and Doctrinal Orthodoxy in Augustine of Hippo’, in Susanna Elm, Éric Rebillard and Romano Antonella (eds), Orthodoxie, christianisme, histoire (Rome: École Française de Rome, 2000), pp. 57–81; ‘The Theologian as Grammarian: Literary Decorum in Augustine's Defense of Orthodox Discourse’, Studia Patristica 38 (2001), pp. 70–83; and ‘Language Matters: Augustine's Use of Literary Decorum in Theological Argument’, Augustian Studies 45 (2014), pp. 1–28. Finally, Michael Cameron has made the most recent contributions to the ongoing discussion in, ‘“She Arranges All Things Pleasingly” (Wis. 8:1): The Rhetorical Base of Augustine's Hermeneutic’, Augustinian Studies 41 (2010), pp. 55–67; and Christ Meets Me Everywhere: Augustine's Early Figurative Exegesis (Oxford: OUP, 2012).
18 The six standard parts of speech are outlined by Cicero in De inventione 1.19–20 as follows: (1) exordium, in which one announces the subject of the speech; (2) narratio, where the ‘facts’ to be discussed in the rest of the speech are rehearsed; (3) partitio, wherein one summarises what has been said and outlines the argument that will follow; (4) confirmatio, the main body of the speech, in which one provides the logical proofs of the argument being made; (5) refutatio, where one answers the counter arguments of one's opponent; (6) the peroratio, where one concludes the case being made and makes a final appeal to the audience. This six-part structure is an elaboration of the basic four-part judicial structure commonly found in Greek rhetorical manuals (προοίμιον, διήγησις, πίστις, ἐπίλογος). For a helpful overview, see Michael de Brauw, ‘The Parts of the Speech’, in Ian Worthington (ed.), A Companion to Greek Rhetoric (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), pp. 187–202.
19 Cicero, De inventione 1.19, 30. On the developing sense of narratio in Cicero and Quintilian, see Lausberg, Heinrich, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric: A Foundation for Literary Rhetoric, ed. Orton, David E. and Anderson, R. Dean, trans. Mathew T. Bliss, Annemiek Jansen and David E. Orton (Boston: Brill, 1998), §289Google Scholar.
20 Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 2.1.8–12; 1.10.5, 13 (LCL 124:214). See 2.11.7 (LCL 124:334), where Quintilian says that if one tries to provide such an account, it results in congesta (‘piled up’) oratio which most closely resembles a schoolboy's notebook.
21 These quantifications, based on analysis of the Loeb Classical Library editions of De oratore 2, Institutio oratoria 2, and Aristotle's Rhetoric (3.16), are pointed out in O'Banion, John, Reorienting Rhetoric: The Dialectic of List and Story (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2006), p. 58Google Scholar.
22 While it is true that, in a certain sense, the student being trained in grammar and rhetoric would treat narrative from the perspective of the reader, since the student would learn to make use of narratio by analysing the work of other authors in the first place, it is important to observe that this does not mean it was a hermeneutical category within the Latin rhetorical tradition. After all, one's grammatical and rhetorical training commonly served the aim of preparing one to craft persuasive speeches. However, in more recent developments in narrative hermeneutics, and, as we will see, in Augustine as well, narrative operates precisely as a hermeneutical category.
23 Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 2.17.37; 2.14.5.
24 Lausberg, Handbook, §32.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 This distinction must be understood within the context of the long-standing debate over the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy. For Cicero, rhetoric is rightly used to address philosophical questions.
28 Cicero, De oratore 2.310–11.
29 Ibid. Ernst Fortin has described this as the ‘ironic posture’ of Cicero's orator, in which he becomes ‘a liar, not because he wants to, but because he has no choice in the matter’. Ernst Fortin, ‘Augustine and the Problem of Christian Rhetoric’, Augustinian Studies (1974), p. 91.
30 See Cicero, De inventione 1.27, where he explains that narratio can take a number of forms, ranging from the literal (historia) to the metaphorical or allegorical (fabula).
31 In De oratore 2.81.330, Cicero states that, because of this ability, narrative is ‘the fountain head from which the whole remainder of the speech flows’ (LCL 348:448): omnis orationis reliquae fons est narratio. Cf. 2.15.63; 2.34.147; 2.39.166.
32 The arrangement I speak of here is an aspect of dispositio, the arrangement of a speech or argument as a whole. However, the arrangement of the elements of narratio is not itself directly linked to a discussion of dispositio in any of the sources we have. Therefore, while there appears to be a logical link between the two, I have refrained from stressing this link in this article.
33 Burke, Kenneth, A Rhetoric of Motives, 2nd edn (New York: George Braziller, 1955), p. 75Google Scholar.
34 O'Banion, Reorienting, pp. 121, 122.
35 Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus 1.1.
36 Fortin, ‘Augustine’, p. 92. Doyle, Daniel makes the same point in ‘The Bishop as Teacher’, in Paffenroth, Kim and Hughes, Kevin H. (eds), Augustine and Liberal Education (Idaho Falls, ID: Lexington Books, 2008), p. 81Google Scholar.
37 Narratio or one of its variants occurs nineteen times in the work, though most of these are brief references not used in a way that is directly significant to my argument here.
38 De doctrina christiana 2.18.28–2.27.41.
39 De doctrina christiana 2.28.44 (CCSL 32:142–3): narratione autem historica cum praeterita etiam hominum instituta narrantur, non inter humana instituta ipsa historia numeranda est, quia iam quae transierunt nec infecta fieri possunt, in ordine temporum habenda sunt, quorum est conditor et administrator deus. aliud est enim facta narrare, aliud docere facienda. historia facta narrat fideliter atque utiliter, libri autem aruspicum et quaeque similes litterae facienda uel observanda intendunt docere, monitoris audacia, non indicis fide. I have followed the NPNF translation of De doctrina christiana throughout this article, though I have modified it in places.
40 Ibid. 2.29.45–6.
41 Ibid. 2.29.45.
42 This, for Augustine, is because of two main divine activities: the establishing of the rationes seminales, and the ongoing work of divine providence. I am suggesting that Augustine casts these notions in terms of divine authorship when discussing revelation. Thus while, for Augustine, all things are governed by divine providence, those things that are the products of human creation are, in a sense, a step removed from the divine authorial intent.
43 De doctrina christiana 3.36.52.
44 Ibid. 3.36.52.
45 Ibid. 3.36.52.
46 Ibid. 3.36.53.
47 Ibid. 3.36.54.
48 Ibid. 3.36.61.
49 For Augustine, this was equally due to the limitations of language.
50 De doctrina christiana 1.2.2. Augustine's theory of language is clearly representative, which is one of the principal points of distinction between his thought and that of postmodernism.
51 Ibid. 1.35.39 (CCSL 32:28): omnium igitur, quae dicta sunt, ex quo de rebus tractamus, haec summa est, ut intellegatur legis et omnium diuinarum scripturarum plenitudo et finis esse dilectio rei, qua fruendum est, et rei, quae nobis cum ea re frui potest, quia, ut se quisque diligat, praecepto non opus est. hoc ergo ut nossemus atque possemus, facta est tota pro nostra salute per diuinam prouidentiam dispensatio temporalis, qua debemus uti, non quasi mansoria quadam dilectione et delectatione, sed transitoria potius tamquam uiae, tamquam uehiculorum uel aliorum quorumlibet instrumentorum aut si quid congruentius dici potest, ut ea quibus ferimur, propter illud, ad quod ferimur, diligamus.
52 Ibid. 1.5.5.
53 Ibid. 2.1.2.
54 Ibid. 2.2.3.
55 It is important to note that it is only one who is not acquainted with the customary meaning who finds the sign arbitrary. Those who are acquainted with the convention see a likeness between the sign and that which it signifies, for it was on this basis that the sign came to stand for the particular thing in the first place. De doctrina christiana 2.25.38.
56 Ibid. 2.25.39.
57 Ibid. 2.25.39.
58 Ibid. 2.25.39.
59 Ibid. 2.10.15; 1 Cor 4:9.
60 Ibid. 2.16.23.
61 Ibid. 2.16.24.
62 Ibid. 2.16.24 (CCSL 32:129): ut scilicet pro capite nostro, quod est christus, corpus potius persequentibus offeramus.
63 Rebecca Harden Weaver has made a similar observation: ‘In effect, he bracketed his presentation on biblical signs with an insistence on the need for intimate familiarity with the sweep of scripture: its fundamental content, and style. . . . [I]t is only after gaining a solid grasp of the message of scripture (“the thing”) that the interpreter should begin to consider the signs that refer to it’. ‘Reading the Signs: Guidance for the Pilgrim Community’, Interpretation 58 (2004), p. 36.
64 Williams, Rowan, ‘Language, Reality and Desire in Augustine's De Doctrina’, Journal of Literature and Theology 3 (1989), p. 148CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
65 De doctrina christiana 1.2.2.
66 Barthes, Roland, ‘The Death of the Author’, in Image-Music-Text, trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Hill & Wang, 1978), p. 147Google Scholar.
67 While I have focused in this essay on the individual's reading of the text, this is not meant to imply the absence of interpretive standards for Augustine. To be sure, Augustine was very conscious of the role of the regula fidei, church and tradition, in his thought. For example, Confessiones 12.20–31 provides evidence of this at work in his thought.
68 De doctrina christiana 1.5.5.
