The complete canon of scripture, on which I say that our attention should be concentrated, includes the following books: the five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), and the single books of Joshua, son of Nave, and of Judges, and the little book known as Ruth, which seems to relate more to the beginnings of Kings and the two of Chronicles, which do not follow chronologically but proceed as it were side by side by Kings. All this is historiography, which covers continuous periods of time and gives a chronological sequence of events. There are others, forming another sequence, not connected with either this class or each other, like Job, Tobias, Esther, Judith and the two books of Maccabees and the two of Ezra, which rather seem to follow on from the chronologically ordered account which ends with Kings and Chronicles. Then came the prophets, including David's single book of Psalms, and three books of Solomon, namely Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. The two books entitled Wisdom and Eccelesiasticus are also said to be by Solomon, on the strength of a general similarity; but there is a strong tradition that Jesus Sirach wrote them, and, in any case, because they have been found worthy of inclusion among authoritative texts, they should be numbered with the prophetic books. There remain the books of the prophets properly so called, the individual books of the twelve prophets who because they are joined together and never separated are counted as one. Their names are these: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Michah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephanian, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Then there are the four prophets in larger books: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel. Those forty-four books from the authoritative Old Testament; the authoritative New Testament consists of the gospel in four books (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), fourteen letters of the apostle Paul (Roman, Corinthians (two), Titus, Philemon, Hebrews), two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude, and one of James, the single book of the Acts of the Apostles and the single book of the revelation of John.

These are all the books in which those who fear God and are made docile by their holiness seek God's will. The first rule in this laborious task is, as I have said, to know these books; not necessarily to understand them but to read them so as to commit them to memory or at least make them not totally unfamiliar. Then the matters which are clearly stated in them, whether ethical precepts or articles of belief should be examined carefully and intelligently. The greater a person's intellectual capacity, the more of these he finds. In clearly expressed passages of scripture one can find all the things that concern faith and the moral life (namely hope and love)... Then, after gaining a familiarity with the language of the divine scriptures, one should proceed to explore and analyse the obscure passages, by taking examples from the more obvious parts to illuminate obscure expressions and by using the evidence of indisputable passages to remove the uncertainty of ambiguous ones. Here memory is extremely valuable; and it cannot be supplied by these instructions if it is lacking.

There are two reasons why written texts fail to be understood: their meaning may be veiled either by unknown signs or by ambiguous signs. Signs are either literal or metaphorical. They are called literal when used to signify the things for which they were invented: as, for example, when we say bovum [ox], meaning the animal which we and all speakers of Latin call by that name. They are metaphorical when the actual things which we signify by the particular words are used to signify something else: when, for example, we say bovum and not only interpret these two syllables to mean the animal normally referred to by that name but also understand, by that animal, "worker in the gospel", which is what scripture, as interpreted by the apostle Paul, means when he says, "You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain".

An important antidote to the ignorance of literal signs is the knowledge of languages. Users of the Latin language - and it is these that I have now undertaken to instruct - need two others, Hebrew and Greek, for an understanding of the divine scriptures, so that recourse may be had to the original versions if any uncertainty arises from the infinite variety of Latin translaters. Though we often find Hebrew words untranslated in the texts, like amen, alleluia, raca, hosanna. In some cases, although they could be translated, the original form is preserved for the sake of its solemn authority; in others... they are said to be incapable of being translated into another language. This is especially true of interjections, which signify emotion rather than an element of clearly conceived meaning: two such words, it is said, are raca, a word expressing anger, and hosanna, a word expressing joy. But it is not because of these few words, which it is easy enough to note down and ask other people about, but because of the aforementioned diversity of translators that a knowledge of languages is necessary...

As for metaphorical signs, any unfamiliar ones which puzzle the reader must be investigated partly through a knowledge of languages, and partly through a knowledge of things. There is a figurative significance and certainly some hidden meaning conveyed by the episode of the pool of Siloam [John 9:7], where the man who had his eyes anointed by the Lord with mud made from spittle was ordered to wash his face. If the evangelist had not explained this name from an unfamiliar language, this important meaning would have remained hidden. So too, many of the Hebrew names not explained by the author of these books undoubtedly have considerable significance and much help to give in solving the mysteries of the scriptures, if they can be explained at all. Various experts in the language have rendered no small service to posterity by explaining the meaning of these individual words from the scriptures and giving the meaning of the names Adam, Eve, Abraham, and Moses, and of place names such as Jerusalem, Zion, Jericho, Sinai, Lebanon, Jordan and any other names in that language that are unfamiliar to us.

St Augustine then goes on to talk about the importance of a knowledge of music and of Hebraic theories about numbers for understanding the metaphors which lie hidden within the scriptures. The study of the scriptures is thus a sacred science, and like all the sciences, it has its own principles and areas of specialist knowledge, such as a knowledge of Old Testament history, and the Hebrew, Greek and Latin languages. The Church has many scholars who devote their lives to the study of scripture, not only for an improvement of their own understanding, but as a way of helping other Christians to better understand the truths contained within the scriptures.

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