Leithart
Though Augustine had the arsenal of the contra Iudaeos tradition at hand in responding to Faustus, he had become dissatisfied with it. After his debate with Fortunatus the Manichean, Augustine had embarked on a deep study of Paul and Genesis and came to recognize the weaknesses of this tradition, whose arguments were neither faithful to the biblical text nor convincing responses to heretics.
We can see the difficulty in his initial rebuttal to Faustus’ attack on the Old Testament. In Book 4, Augustine responds by drawing a distinction between the Old Testament promises, which concern temporal things (temporalium . . . rerum promissiones) and the promises of the New, which have to do with eternal life in the kingdom of heaven (aeternae vitae promissio regnumque coelorum). This initial “spiritualizing” hermeneutic plays into the Manichean hands: If Catholics are seeking spiritual religion, why cling to the fleshly Old Testament canon? Why not become purely spiritual and join the Manichees?
Augustine’s distinction of temporal and eternal promises is somewhat stronger than this, since it is homologous with his distinction of time and eternity. Though the promises of the Old were temporal and the New eternal, the temporal promises were figures of the future eternal promises (in illis temporalibus figuras fuisse futurorum, quae implerentur in nobis), a point Augustine supports by appeal to Paul’s claim in 1 Corinthians 10 that the exodus account was written “for our instruction, on whom the ends of the ages have come.”
Christians do not seek to understand the Old Testament in order to acquire what the Old Testament promises, but rather study the temporal figures in order to understand what the New Testament grants. Citing Jesus’ appearance to the two disciples on the road to Emmaeus, who recognized the Lord only in Word and in the breaking of bread, Augustine points out that carnal senses can be deceived and their dullness need to be enlivened by the witness of Israel’s Scriptures. By introducing the category of “testimony,” Augustine underscores the continuing usefulness of the Old Testament. It is not an antiquated figure but a witness to the church in the present.[1]
As the treatise progresses, Augustine’s responses become more penetrating. After Old Testament promises, he takes up the question of Old Testament commandments. All authority is practical authority, Faustus assumes, and he asks, How can Catholics affirm the authority of the texts but refuse to practice Jewish rites? Augustine’s response relies on a Christological hermeneutical framework. Scripture as a whole speaks of Christ, a point he elaborates with a thrilling florilegium of types and shadows (Book 12). That Christocentric principle applies as much to the commands of the Old Testament as to the promises and narratives. Israel receives the Law to enact a living parable of the coming Messiah.[2]
In developing this point, Augustine introduces a new distinction between precepts that regulate life and precepts that signify life (inter praecepta vitae agendae, et praecepta vitae significandae). “Do not covet” regulates life, “circumcise on the eighth day” symbolizes life. Along with circumcision, the Sabbath, sacrificial rites, and prohibitions of unclean meats also symbolize life. Though Christians no longer observe these rites, they were suitable in their time as commands (quae utique illi tempori congruebant; Contra Faustum, 6).[3]
This distinction overlaps the earlier distinction between earthly, temporal figures and later, eternal realities. Commandments that symbolize life are figural shadows of the future (umbram futuroum) but the commands that regulate life are permanent. Yet the symbolic regulations do not simply pass away. Instead, they give way to the realities of Christian experience. Christians no longer circumcise, but through the power of Jesus’ resurrection Christians strip off the flesh of passion and thus experience the circumcision of the heart figured by Jewish circumcision. Christians do not keep Sabbath, but they have a present hope of eternal rest, and so reading about and understanding the figural Sabbath enables Christians to grasp the significance of the rest they even now enjoy in Christ. Though now useless to observe literally, the Sabbath rules are “not useless to read about or understand.”
Israel’s sacrifices were not, as Faustus contends, idolatrous, but foreshadowed the church’s memorial celebration of the one sacrifice symbolized by the multiple and varied sacrifices of the temple (quia et ipsa figurae nostrae fuerunt, et omnia talia multis et variis modis unum sacrificium, cuius nunc memoriam celebramus, significaverunt). All of these remain “in the authority of their meaning” even if the practices ceased. In all these examples, Augustine argument moves from practice in the old to understanding in the new, from Israel’s practice to the church’s meaning, from doing to reading. And this is a movement from body to spirit: Christians are not to observe corporaliter, but to understand and do spiritualiter (6.9.1).
Christian study of the symbolic laws does not involve Judaizing, but is instead a witness to Christian freedom. While Jews and literal Judaizers read about circumcision in a “superstitious” way, Christians read, understand, and practice them in a “religious” manner (book 8). Without acknowledging its roots in Israel’s life, Christian freedom lacks definition and specificity. We need to know the contours of Jewish “bondage” before we can understand the trajectory of Christian freedom.
(This is taken from a paper delivered at the Wilken Colloquium, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, in March 2011.)
[1] See Kari Kloos, “History as Witness: Augustine’s Interpretation of the History of Israel in Contra Faustum and De trinitate,” in Christopher T. Daly, et. al, eds., Augustine and History (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008), pp. 31-51.
[2] In this first foray into this question, Augustine ends by turning the Judaizing charge back on Faustus. He does not understand because he does not believe, and he does not believe because he refuses to learn from the church. Clinging only to the promises of the New, without recognizing that they are fulfillments of the figurative promises of the Old, leaves him still in the Old.
[3] Circumcision of the foreskin was doubly appropriate, since the sign of regeneration is rightly placed on the organ of generation and because concupiscence is concentrated in sexual organs.
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