The Problem of Literalism Part 2: Augustine

Originally, I had intended to consider Spinoza’s caustic literalism, but events and more study suggest that we should begin in chronological order with our friend Augustine’s “historical literalism.” Given the overarching theme of our series, we will have to develop a bit of context to better understand the sophistication and relevance of his view to our wider discussion. So, let’s begin by considering the interpretive systems that Augustine rejected; what we shall discover is that Augustine anticipated the “modern” attempt to reinterpret the Bible as salvageable myth

In The City of God, Augustine demolished the arguments of both contemporary pagans and philosophers that the fall of Rome was caused by the introduction of Christianity into the Roman Empire. The traditionalists argued that the popularity of Christianity had led to the abandonment of the old gods, and these gods then withdrew their protection from the Roman people, leading to the victory of the Goths.

Augustine attacked the pagan apologetic by arguing that the worship of the pagan gods was sub-rational and beneath the dignity of both Divinity and man.  His main pagan source for the critique was the work of a historian and philosopher by the name of Marcus Varreo (116-27 B.C.). Varreo had attempted to rationalize the Roman religious traditions, histories, and practices into a coherent system that would serve both the philosophers and the civil religious needs of the Roman people. And he did this by developing a threefold distinction for the source of theology or the accounts of the gods.

Augustine quotes Varreo and then comments on these distinctions:

Of these he calls one mythical, another physical, and the third civil. If Latin usage permitted, we should call the kind which he placed first “fabular;” but let us call it “fabulous,” for the word “mythical” is derived from mythos, which means “fable” in Greek. That the second kind should be called “natural” the custom of speech now admits; and he has given the Latin name to the third, which he calls “civil,” Then he says: “They call that kind of theology mythical which is especially used by the poets; the physical is that which the philosophers use: and the civil, that which the people use. The City of God against the Pagans, trans. R. W. Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 246-247, 6.5.

Augustine goes on to tell us that Varreo clearly rejects the possibility of recovering any sort of truth from the mythical accounts of the gods as given by poets such as Homer. Yet, Varreo attempts to reinterpret the myths through natural theology or philosophy for the purpose of continuing the civil religion. This was required because in the ancient world there was no separation between the state and the religion, and religion served as a tool for comforting and controlling the masses. Civil religion was collapsed into mythical and natural theology because it was dependent on both.

Augustine then described Varreo’s efforts:

But all these things, our adversaries say, have certain physical interpretations, that is, interpretations in terms of natural phenomena—as if in this discussion we were seeking physics rather than theology, which is an account not of nature, but of God. For although the true God is God not by opinion but by nature, nonetheless all nature is not God. For there is certainly a nature of man and beast and tree and stone, but none of these is God. If, however, when we discuss the rites of the mother of the gods, the first premise of the interpretation is that the mother of the gods is the earth, why do we seek further? Why consider anything else? What gives clearer in support of those who say that all those gods were once men? For if the earth is their mother, surely they are the sons of earth. In the true theology, however, the earth is the work of God, not His mother. Ibid, 255, 6.8.

What an insight! If a philosopher or historian begins with the first premise that all that is is the earth, then all theology must be limited to the earth. Mythical theology and natural theology are identical in that they never transcend nature. The poets make the gods act like men because the greatest persons in their experience is man, and the natural philosophers make men gods because they are the persons who give significance to a silent cosmos. Poetic accounts of the gods and natural accounts of the gods have the same theological outcome—the deification of humanity, either as gods or component parts of the gods.

Augustine also begins to draw out the difference among the mystical gods, the god of the natural philosophers, and the God of the Bible. Nature’s God is not nature, nor produced by nature. Because the God revealed in the Bible transcends nature as its creator, he can be greater than the sum of nature. Further, Augustine introduces a form of theology beyond the categories of Varreo—true theology or the true account of God.

Unlike the conclusions of the natural theologian or the mythical accounts of the poets, true theology is founded on the transcendent God’s revelation of a true history (cf. The City of God, 19.18). This distinction between mythical and natural over and against the revealed theology continues throughout the rest of his work, even including his trust in the scriptural account of the ages of the pre-diluvium men:

But the longevity of the men who lived in those times [prior to the flood] cannot now be demonstrated by anything within our experience. Nevertheless, we should not on that account impugn the accuracy of sacred history. Our impudence in not believing what it narrates would be as great as the evidence of the fulfillment of its prophecies is clear to our eyes. . . .Why is it credible that something which does not happen here should happen somewhere else, yet incredible that something which does not happen now should have happened at some other time? Ibid, 650-651, 15.9.

Fundamentally then, Augustine rejects two sorts of theology and therefore two accounts of history: the mythical and the natural. He embraces a third form of history and theology which is revealed by God.

What I hope is apparent to the modern reader is that Varreo’s project of using natural theology/philosophy/science to demystify his pagan religious sources is now pressed upon the church as an interpretive principle for the Bible. Here’s an example of a modern critic of Christianity complaining about believers’ refusal to accept the category of myth:

But for fundamentalists, who take myth in its popular sense of ‘lie,’ as distinct from archetypical or elemental truth, myth must be collapsed into history—the record of things as they actually happened in the world of verifiable, external reality. Malise Ruthven, Fundamentalism: The Search for Meaning (Oxford: Oxford Press, 2004), 90.

Ruthven’s frustration with “fundamentalists” is their refusal to accept Varreo’s or the natural philosophers’ rejection of the possibility of a revealed history. Yet Dr. Ruthven and his Christian cohorts like Peter Enns are frustrated with Christians of all ages and the text of Scripture itself. The genre of mythical theology and history was well known to Moses (cf. Deut. 4:35-39 and Acts 7:22), the Apostles (cf. 2 Pet. 1:16, 1 Tim. 1:4), and the early church, and it has constantly been rejected by Christians throughout history. Augustine was neither the first nor the last Christian to understood that myths were fables—narratives invented by the poets (authors/prophets) for a variety of motives.

Part of the reason that it seems so reasonable to call parts of the Bible myth is caused by something that was noted by Tolkien: “History often resembles ‘Myth’, because they are both ultimately of the same stuff” (“On Fairy-Stories,” in The Monsters and the Critics [London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1983], 127). Natural history, mythical history, and revealed history have the same basic elements because they are all attempting to describe what happened in the past. Modern natural history agrees that there was a first human, as does mythical history, and revealed history. All three histories develop a narrative of the first man. The difference is not the subject or the fundamental elements, but the sources of the information and, as Augustine noted above, first premises of interpretation. Natural history is limited to nature interpreted by the mind of man, mythical history by the imagination of the poets, and revealed history by the revelation of God. As Augustine understood, if the Bible is mythical, then the revealing God is simply a fabulous fable.

Let’s draw together what we’ve learned. Augustine rejected the possibility of interpreting the Bible as myth or interpreting it through natural presuppositions.  He considered the same interpretive options open to modern believers and in response he developed as a part of his hermeneutic a historical literalism.  He believed that it was a revealed history.  He believed that the God of the Bible was nature’s God. And we are now ready to consider what he meant by literal interpretation, but for that we will have to wait until next month.