‘Was Augustine an Intentionalist? Authorial Intention in Augustine’s Hermeneutics’ Tarmo TOOM, Washington DC ABSTRACT Ancient rhetorical tradition discussed the possible semantic discrepancy between the written word (scripta) and the writer’s intention (voluntas). In the case of such discrepancy, the intended meaning of an author was usually preferred to the lexical/syntactic meaning of a text. The debate about the hermeneutical importance of authorial intention continues in modern hermeneutics. There are those for whom the meaning of a text is isomorphic with authorial intention, and those for whom the meaning of a text is completely independent from authorial intention. In comparison with these extreme positions, Augustine seems to hold a middle ground. He has both hermeneutical and theological reasons for avoiding the one-sided extremes. Augustine defends the importance of human authorial intention as an undeniable factor not only in the existence of the signa data (i.e., words/sentences as intentional signs), but partially also in the establishment of their meaning(s). Nevertheless, he postulates certain restrictions to the human authorial intention in determining the meaning(s) of scriptural texts. Accordingly, this paper investigates these restrictions or qualifications that Augustine postulates for the acknowledged hermeneutical role of authorial intention. I will argue that, for Augustine, there were primarily two reasons for defending a limited role of (the human) authorial intention in interpretation of the Scriptures. 1. The Scriptures as a double-authored text (i.e., a text authored by God and humans) prevent the human authorial intention from being the ultimate hermeneutical criterion. 2. To equate the human authorial intention with the meaning of a text would tie the meaning of the canonical texts to the past history and may eliminate the possibility of Christological interpretations of the Old Testament. Due to his education and pre-conversion profession(s), Augustine was deeply embedded into the ancient rhetorical tradition, which followed certain elaborate rules for interpreting texts.1 Among the standard topics discussed in rhetorical 1 Cicero, Inv. 2.40.116-41.121; Or. 1.31.140; Rhet. Her. 1.11.19-13.23; Quintilian, Inst. 3.6.46. Studia Patristica LIV, 1-00. © Peeters Publishers, 2012. 2 T. TOOM manuals was the possible non-correspondence between the written word (scripta) and the writer’s intention (voluntas)2 which, in the ideal case reinforced each other and formed a symbiotic phenomenon. However, because scriptum and voluntas could and, at times, did contradict each other,3 it was deemed important to prioritize these two hermeneutical criteria hierarchically. That is, voluntas was usually favored over scriptum, the intended meaning over the lexical/syntactic meaning.4 Voluntas auctoris was affirmed and highlighted despite all the difficulties in ascertaining such an elusive, ambivalent, and at times inaccessible hermeneutical criterion. The debates about the importance of authorial intention have continued in modern hermeneutics.5 There are those for whom the meaning of a text is considered isomorphic with authorial intention,6 and those for whom the meaning of a text is completely independent from authorial intention.7 For example and on one hand, Hirsch argues that the intended meaning of an author is the 2 Cicero Inv. 2.44.128; Rhet. Her. 2.9.13-10.14; pseudo-Augustine, rhet. 11. In 2Cor. 3:6, the first Christian writer, Apostle Paul, adopted the originally legal/rhetorical distinction between scriptum and voluntas for his distinction between gramma and pneuma. It became an integral part of the Christian exegetical tradition and lived on, in Latin Christian tradition, as the distinction between littera and spiritus (Kathy Eden, Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition: Chapters in the Ancient Legacy and Its Humanist Reception, in Yale Studies in Hermeneutics [New Haven, 1997], 56f.). 3 Cicero, Inv. 2.42.122; 2.48.142. Cassiodorus explained that ‘the issue of spirit and letter of the law comes up when the words themselves seem to be at variance with the intention of the writer of the law (‘Scriptum et voluntas est, quando verba ipsa videntur cum sententia scriptoris dissidere’)’ (Inst. 2.2.6). 4 Plato, Crat. 434e; Prot. 341e; Aristotle, Rhet. 1.13.17 1374b; Diodorus Cronus, fr. 7 in Aelius Gellius 11.12.1-3; Cicero, Inv. 2.42.122-23; Varro, ling. Lat. 7.1.1; Quintilian, Inst. 7.6. See K. Eden, ‘Hermeneutics and Ancient Tradition’, Rhetorica 5/1 (1987), 59-86, 67-86; ‘Rhetorical Tradition and Augustinian Hermeneutics in De doctrina Christiana’, Rhetorica 8 (1990), 45-63, 50; John C. Poirier, ‘Authorial Intention as Old as Hills’, Stone-Campbell Journal 7 (2004), 59-72. 5 See Burhanettin Tatar, Interpretation and the Problem of Authorial Intention, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (The Catholic University of America, 1997), especially pages 47-105. 6 In the tradition of ancient rhetorical manuals, which used voluntas and sententia synonymously (Cicero, Inv. 2.42.122; Rhet. Her. 1.11.19), Knapp and Michaels have identified authorial intention explicitly with the meaning of a text (Steven Knapp and Walter B. Michaels, ‘Against Theory’, in William J.T. Mitchell (ed.). Against Theory: Literary Studies and the New Pragmatism [Chicago, 1985]: 11-30). 7 Plato pointed out that written words were words without their ‘father’s’ (i.e., their utterer’s) protection (Phaed. 275d-e). Derrida reiterated by looking at any text as ‘a writing orphaned, and separated at birth from the assistance of his father [i.e., of its author’s intent]’ (Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy [Chicago, 1982], 316). Barthes, too, turned away from an author, and especially from the Author-God, as the intender and guarantor of meaning (Roland Barthes, ‘The Death of the Author’, in Image, Music, Text, trans. Stephen Heath [New York, 1977], 142-8). Theorists who have attempted a ‘linguistic decomposition of subject-centered philosophies’ have become the ‘founding father[s] of the death of the father [i.e., the author]’ (Seán Burke, The Death and Return of the Author: Criticism and Subjectivity in Barthes, Foucault and Derrida [Edinburgh, 1992], 9 and 15). 'Was Augustine an Intentionalist? Authorial Intention in Augustine's Hermeneutics' 3 (stable) meaning of a text.8 On the other hand, Wimsatt and Beardsley contend that authorial intention does not control the meaning of a text (i.e., a poem).9 This polarized controversy over the importance of voluntas auctoris in literary studies has its echoes in biblical hermeneutics too.10 In the light of these debates, Augustine seems to hold something like a middle ground, ‘the hermeneutic middle-kingdom’.11 While affirming the importance of authorial intention, he had both hermeneutical and theological reasons for disagreeing with either extreme position. Accordingly, this paper investigates the qualifications that Augustine postulated for the acknowledged hermeneutical role of authorial intention in interpreting texts. For him, there were primarily two reasons12 for defending an important yet limited role of authorial intention in interpretation of the Scriptures. 1. The Scriptures as a double-authored text (i.e., a text authored by God and human co-authors) prevented the human authorial intention from being the ultimate hermeneutical criterion. 2. To equate the human authorial intention with the meaning of a text would tie the meaning of the canonical texts to the past history and might eliminate the possibility of figurative/Christological interpretation of the Old Testament. 8 This eminent intentionalist contends, ‘all valid interpretation of every sort is founded on the re-cognition of what an author meant’ (Eric D. Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation [New Haven, 1967], 126). To be able to defend such understanding of things and to excuse authors from the unintended consequences coming from the semantic surplus of their texts, Hirsch distinguishes between unchanging ‘meaning’ (intended results and desired consequences) and constantly changing ‘significance’ (unintended results and arbitrary applications) (ibid. 8, 62-3). Alternatively, a distinction is also made between ‘meaning’ and ‘applications’ (Walter C. Kaiser, ‘Author’s Intention: Response’, in Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible [Grand Rapids, 1984], 441-7, 443). In addition, one should mention those who have tried to move away from the mere psychologistic understanding of intention, such as a Speech-Act theorist John Searle, Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Act (Cambridge, 1979) and Wittgenstein with his explanation that ‘an intention is embedded in its situation, in human customs and institutions’ (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 3d ed., trans. Gertrude E.M. Anscombe [Englewood Cliffs, 1958], par. 337). 9 William K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley, ‘The Intentional Fallacy’, in The Verbal Icon, ed. W.K. Wimsatt (Lexington, 1954 [original 1946]), 3-18. These authors cautioned against confusing a text and its meaning with the question of the historical origin of that text, of what is ‘behind’ the text. 10 See, respectively Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text? The Bible, the Reader, and the Morality of Literary Knowledge (Grand Rapids, 1998), 240-65 and Stephen D. Moore, Literary Criticism and the Gospels: The Theoretical Challenge [New Haven, 1989], 36-8, 53f., 77. See also Nigel Watson, ‘Authorial Intention – Suspect Concept for Biblical Scholars?’, Australian Biblical Review 35 (1987), 6-13. 11 David Glidden, ‘Augustine’s Hermeneutics and the Principle of Charity’, Ancient Philosophy 17 (1997), 135-57, 136. 12 More reasons can be suggested: 1) the Truth (with a capital ‘T’) is a larger category than the true meanings that the human authors of the Scriptures intend (Augustine, conf. 12.16.23; 12.23.32-25.34; 13.29.44; doc. Chr. 3.27.38); 2) canonical meaning of texts may overrule the ‘original’ intended meaning (doc. Chr. 2.6.8; 3.27.38); and 3) the human authorial intention cannot always be recovered and appealed to (conf. 12.24.33; 12.30.41 mag. 13.42-3; util. cred. 11). 4 T. TOOM It might be helpful to start from highlighting the undeniable significance that Augustine attributed to (human) authorial intention as one of the important criteria to arrive at the meaning(s) of a text. For him and as a rule, voluntas auctoris functioned as the anchor of the meaning of a text or utterance and as validation of one’s interpretation.13 In fact, Augustine said things which would be very pleasing to contemporary hard-core intentionalists. ‘Our aim should be nothing else than to seek what is the intention of the one who speaks (‘quam quid uelit qui loquitur’)’.14 ‘[An exegete] must make every effort to arrive at the intention of the author (‘ut ad voluntatem perveniatur auctoris’)’.15 Find out the ‘author’s meaning’ (‘sensus auctoris’)!16 In doc. Chr. 1.36.41, he puts it rather categorically: ‘But any who understand a passage in the Scriptures to mean (‘sentit’) something which the writer did not mean is mistaken’. And above all, Augustine’s whole scientia signorum is focusing on a special case of ‘given/intentional/conventional signs’ (‘signa data’).17 It is quite clear that Augustine remained faithful to the ancient rhetoricians’ verdict about the priority of voluntas and consequently, he defended the importance of human authorial intention as a non-negotiable factor not only in the mere existence of the signa data (i.e., words as intentional signs), but partially 13 Augustine, doc. Chr. 1.36.41; see cons. Ev. 2.28.67, 2.46.97. In Or. 1.57.244, Cicero remarked that every student knew how to appeal to voluntas when scriptum needed to be countered. Yet, it is significant that both Cicero and his ‘student’ Augustine refused to do away with the control of scriptum even while preferring voluntas (ibid.; Augustine, doc. Chr. 2.13.19). Augustine thought that to retain the control of the scriptum was crucial, especially when an interpreter, trying to follow the authorial intention, was tempted to disregard the scriptum. He said explicitly that literal translations ‘help to control the freedom (‘ut … libertas … dirigatur’)’ of the ‘intuitive’ postulation of the author’s meaning (doc. Chr. 2.13.19). He also wrote to Maximinus, ‘though your intention (‘propositio’) was different, still the words (‘uerbis’) are your own’ (c. Max. 1.19). 14 Augustine, cons. Ev. 2.12.29. In reference to cons. Ev. 2.28.67, Harrison has argued that Augustine equated truth with authorial intention (Carol Harrison, ‘“Not Words but Things”: Harmonious Diversity in the Four Gospels’, in Frederick van Fleteren and Joseph C. Schnaubelt (ed.), Augustine: Biblical Exegete [Bern, 2001]: 157-73, 162-5). Yet, rather than seeing cons. Ev. 2.28.67 as a blunt contradiction to conf. 12.24.33-25.35 and doc. Chr. 3.27.38, where truth is understood as a larger category than authorial intention, Augustine’s assertion in this treatise should be considered case specific. It is one thing to argue that the four evangelists intended to convey the same truth, and another that truth as such is always limited to and determined by authorial intention. The second does not necessarily follow from the first, perhaps not even in the case of De consensu euangelistarum. 15 Augustine, doc. Chr. 3.27.38. In ep. Rm. inch. 1, too, Augustine points out that meaning of the apostle’s words is found in what he ‘intends to teach (‘docere intendit’)’. 16 Augustine, doc. Chr. 2.12.18 (where he arguably meant the intention of the human writers of the Scriptures). The point is that to understand linguistic expression hermeneutically is to trace back from what is said to what is intended. In other words, what matters is what the author intended and not the precise words in which the author expresses his/her thoughts (Jean Grondin, ‘The Task of Hermeneutics in Ancient Philosophy’, in Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 8 [1994], 211-30). 17 Augustine, doc. Chr., Books II and III, especially 2.1.2-2.2.3. 'Was Augustine an Intentionalist? Authorial Intention in Augustine's Hermeneutics' 5 also in establishing their meaning. He does seem to come across as a protointentionalist. At the same time, one has to keep in mind that Augustine considered the Scriptures to be the revelatory speech of God.18 ‘One single utterance of God [is] amplified throughout all the Scriptures (‘cum sit unus sermo dei in scripturis omnibus dilatatus’)’.19 Such theological conviction about the particular nature of the text20 obviously led Augustine to the postulation of certain restrictions to the importance of the human co-authorial intentions.21 As it was mentioned above, the first restriction for the hegemony of the human authorial intention came from the fact that Augustine took the Scripture to be a double-authored text.22 Accordingly, the human authorial intention was not the only authorial intention that was involved in the act of communication.23 ‘When [the authors of the Scripture] wrote these books, God was speaking to them, or [perhaps we should say] through them (‘eis deum uel per eos locutum’)’.24 In connection with the Psalms, he adds: ‘The author is the prophet, but more truly the Holy Spirit who spoke through the prophet (‘per prophetam’)’.25 For Augustine, somehow the human signa data transformed into the signa divinitus data26 – just as apostle Paul said that his preaching 18 Paddison has recently claimed that ‘Scripture is not first a source for historical inquiry, nor a text that delights our literary sensitivities: calling these collected texts “Scripture” points to its commissioned role in the saving purposes of God’ (Angus Paddison, Scripture: A Very Theological Proposal [London, 2009], 1). 19 Augustine, en. Ps. 103, exp. 4, 1. See Augustine, c. Adim. 7.4 (and 16.3), ‘both testaments agree and are in harmony – inasmuch as they were both written by one God’. 20 ‘Interpretative assumptions about the nature of the text have implications for further assumptions about what the act of reading should involve’ (Blossom Stefaniw, Mind, Text, Commentary: Noetic Exegesis in Origen of Alexandria, Didymus the Blind, and Evagrios of Ponticus, Early Christianity in the Context of Late Antiquity 6 [Bern, 2010], 87). 21 According to Minnis, the shift of interest from the divine auctor to the human auctores of the Scripture took place in the thirteenth century (Alastair J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages [London, 1984], 5). 22 Allen A. Gilmore, ‘Augustine and the Critical Method’, HTR 39 (1948), 141-64, 159. ‘The complications … stem mainly from the biblical texts being both human communications to humans and (say some) divine communications to humans’ (Robert Morgan and John Barton, Biblical Interpretation [Oxford, 1988], 2). A conviction that God was the ultimate author of the Scriptures was shared throughout the so-called pre-critical period (David Steinmetz, ‘The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis’, Ex Auditu 1 [1985], 74-82, 77). 23 I have discussed a related but different problem of whether human authorial intentions always materialize in and through a text in Tarmo Toom, ‘Augustine on the “Communicative Gaps” in Book Two of De doctrina Christiana’, Augustinian Studies 34/2 (2003), 213-22. 24 Augustine, civ. Dei 18.41; see conf. 12.23.32; Trin. 3.11.23. Augustine could also speak as if a text had an intention: ‘[The psalm] wants us, the readers, to remember …’ (en. Ps. 118. exp. 22, 4). 25 Augustine, en. Ps. 30.2, exp. 2. Polman points out that Augustine uses ‘the ablative for the work of the Holy Spirit and the preposition per for that of biblical authors’ (Andries D.R. Polman, The Word of God According to St. Augustine [Grand Rapids, 1961], 51). 26 Augustine, doc. Chr. 2.2.3. 6 T. TOOM should be accepted ‘not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word’ (1Thess. 2:13). Therefore, in reading the Scriptures, one’s aim should be ‘to find out the thoughts and wishes of those by whom it was written down and, through them, the will of God, which we believe these men followed as they spoke (‘appetunt quam cogitationes voluntatemque illorum a quibus conscripta est invenire et per illas voluntatem dei, secundum quam tales homines locutos credimus’)’.27 Similar statements are made, for example, in conf. 12.23.32, where Augustine prayed that he might approach ‘the words of Your book and in them seek Your meaning through the meaning of Your servant [i.e., Moses] by whose pen You gave them to us (‘quaeramus in eis uoluntatem tuam per uoluntatem famuli tui, cuius calamo dispensasti ea’)’, and in en. Ps. 36, exp. 3, 2, where Augustine defines his task as that of an exegete, ‘to discern the will of God in these verses (‘ut inspiciamus in his uersibus psalmi uoluntatem dei’)’. In short, just like the rest of the fathers, Augustine was convinced that ‘the Bible is eloquium diuinum’ and ‘its study is always a reverential act directed towards ascertaining the intention of the Divine Author’.28 Some critics of Augustine’s exegesis evidently contended that Moses did not intend to say that which Augustine read out from the Book of Genesis and believed that God had intended.29 However, the bishop was not particularly disturbed by such criticism, because he was mostly concerned with what God, not Moses, intended to say through the Scriptures.30 ‘True God-fearers are conscientious about seeking God’s will (or intention) (‘deum voluntatem’) in the Scriptures’.31 This is the reason why, in the special case of the inspired Scriptures, Augustine took the voluntas Auctoris with utmost seriousness and clearly preferred it to the 27 Ibid., 2.5.6. Thomas F. Martin, ‘Vox Pauli: Augustine and the Claims to Speak for Paul, An Exploration of Rhetoric as the Service of Exegesis’, JECS 8 (2000), 237-72, 245. Arguably, the Latin word auctor was not applied to God before Augustine (Bruce Vawter, Biblical Inspiration [London, 1972], 25). The first conciliar statement about God’s authorship of the Scriptures is in Statua Ecclesia Antiqua of the fifth century (Denzinger, No. 325). 29 Augustine, conf. 12.18.27. 30 There were some Latin exegetes who did not care much at all about human authors and their intentions, because ultimately it was what God intended to express through the Scripture that mattered (Later fundamentalists have used a similar argument for their own ends). Tyconius did not bother with human authors, because it was the Spirit who produced the scriptural accounts (lib. reg. 4). Gregory the Great, in turn, wrote that it was ‘absolutely pointless (‘valde supervacua’)’ to investigate who was the human author, because the Holy Spirit was the real Author. In fact, a given human author was like a ‘pen’ (‘calamus’) in the hand of a Writer (Moralia Praef. 1.2; see Plato, Ion 534c; Athenagoras, Leg. 9 [‘flute’ instead of ‘pen’]). 31 Augustine, doc. Chr. 3.1.1. For figuring out God’s intention, among other (external) things such as regula fidei and caritas, Augustine had to turn to illumination (e.g., conf. 11.3.5). The truth that Christ, the ‘the Light of all true minds (‘lux omnium veridicarum mentium’)’, suggested should be accepted, even if it was not intended by the human author of a scriptural book (conf. 12.18.27). 28 'Was Augustine an Intentionalist? Authorial Intention in Augustine's Hermeneutics' 7 human co-authorial inspired intentions. As a double-authored text, human authorial intention had, in fact, only a relative, sort of secondary hermeneutical importance,32 and definitely not an absolute control over the meaning of the text.33 Next, Augustine’s conviction about the double authorship of the Scripture also means that he clearly allowed other meanings of a scriptural text besides the ones intended by the human co-authors, if these meanings did not contradict the regula fidei, of course.34 Namely, the Holy Spirit could intend meanings which human authors were not able to intend. To follow the ‘letter’ in the sense of being limited to human authorial intention and not to discern the intention of the Holy Spirit in it, was nothing but a ‘carnal way’ (‘carnaliter’) of understanding.35 In other words, what ultimately mattered was what God intended to say to the hearers of the Word at any time and place, rather than what human co-authors wanted to say to their immediate audiences.36 Augustine simply refused to keep the meaning of a text frozen exclusively to its particular historical and cultural location of origin. For example, while pondering about the surprising confusion of the names Achish with Abimelech in the title of Ps. 34, Augustine commented on the mystery of the deliberate name-change: Otherwise we might have thought that what the psalm recalled and related was nothing more than the event recounted in the Book of Kings (i.e., 1Sam. 21:10-5); then we would not have sought out any prefiguration of future happenings, but read it simply as the story of past events (‘et non ibi quaereremus figuras futurorum, sed tamquam res gestas acciperemus’).37 32 For non-religious reasons, Gadamer claimed that ‘not just occasionally but always, the meaning of a text goes beyond its author’ (Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd ed., trans. Joel Weisenheimer [New York, 1989], 296). 33 Augustine held together the divine and human authorial intentions with the help of his orthodox Christology. Just like the divine and human natures existed in the person of Christ (e.g., Jo. ev. tr. 19.15; 27.4; s. 186.1; 137.3.9), so existed the divine and human authorial intentions in the Scripture – not as equal entities, but as equally important entities. Augustine’s asymmetrical ‘Cyrillian’ Christology guaranteed a clear preference for the divine intention, but not at the expense of the human authorial intention. 34 Augustine, doc. Chr. 3.27.38. 35 Ibid. 3.5.9. 36 Commenting on Ps. 102, Augustine said: ‘At the time of writing [the words of this Psalm] were not profitable to the people among whom they were written (‘non ita proderant eis inter quos scribebantur’), for their purpose was to foretell (‘ad prophetandum’) the New Covenant among the people who were living under the Old’ (en. Ps. 101, exp. 1, 19; see 1Cor. 10:6-13). He added: ‘We should not assume that the Holy Spirit intends (‘agere’) us simply to recall what was done in the past, giving no thought to similar happenings in the future (‘ut praeterita illa gesta recolentes, nequaquam futura talia cogitemus’)’ (en. Ps. 113, exp. 1, 1). 37 En. Ps. 33, exp. 12, 7. See also Augustine, ex. Gal. 40.7, which speaks about the sons of Keturah (Gen. 25:1-2): ‘For these events … were not recorded under the guidance of the Holy Spirit for nothing’. One should see in these events ‘some figure of things to come (‘in aliqua rerum figura futuram inspicere’)’. 8 T. TOOM This takes us to Augustine’s next qualification of the importance of the human authorial intent. If human authorial intent were the primary and exclusive hermeneutical criterion, the meaning of many scriptural texts would be tied to the past history, and the relevance of the Old Testament for the Christian church would be largely eliminated. In fact, without the figurative/Christological interpretation, Old Testament historical accounts can provoke only some sort of archeological/historical interest, or be limited to the religious interests of Jews. The Scripture could then speak only to particular ‘original’ cultures and circumstances. For example, in en. Ps. 70, exp. 1, 2, Augustine assures his audience, ‘but this psalm … is not concerned with Israelites’. Stephen Fowl writes: Christians have theological [my emphasis] reasons for arguing against using notions of authorial intention to limit the various ways they are called to engage the Scripture. These reasons are largely but not exclusively tied to Christian convictions about the Old Testament. Any attempt to tie a single stable account of meaning to authorial intention will put Christians in an awkward relationship with the Old Testament.38 Clearly, the question that bothered Augustine was, ‘how can all the things which are told in the Old Testament be spiritually “useful” (opheleia, utilis; 2Tim. 3:16) for Christians?’ Once again, he refused to accept the idea that what had been written for past generations had nothing to say to Christian readers at any time.39 While considering various Old Testament events, Augustine explicitly asks, ‘how is it possible that all this had no significance (‘unde fieri potest ut non hoc aliquid significaret’) [for us]?’40 The truth of the matter was that, for Augustine, precisely the figurative/Christological understanding of the ancient texts turned the signa data of the Old Testament into the ‘useful signs’ (‘signa utiles’).41 The bottom line is that Augustine’s theological convictions about the Scripture relativized the hermeneutical importance of the human authorial intent.42 He seems to have promoted a sort of theologically modified intentionalism 38 Stephen E. Fowl, ‘The Role of Authorial Intention in the Theological Interpretation of Scripture’, in Joel B. Green and Max Turner (ed.), Between Two Horizons: Spanning New Testament Studies and Systematic Theology(Grand Rapids, 2000), 71-87, 80. 39 Treier has observed, ‘the pre-critical exegete was concerned with a text’s interpretation in the light of salvation history … assessing what God was saying to the interpreting community was the proper concern of exegesis, not some post-exegetical step’ (Daniel J. Treier, ‘The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis? Sic et Non’, Trinity Journal 24 [2003], 77-103, 83). 40 Augustine, en. Ps. 33, exp. 1, 3. 41 Figurative interpretation enabled Augustine to hold a view that almost all the truth of the Gospel could be found in the Old Testament (c. Adim. 3.4). ‘For me, Christ is everywhere in these books (‘Christus mihi ubique illorum librorum’)’ (c. Faust. 12.27). 42 Van Fleteren assesses, ‘the precise intention of the human author is important for Augustine, but not as essential as for contemporary exegetes’ (F. Van Fleteren, ‘Principles of Augustine’s Hermeneutics: An Overview’, in Augustine: Biblical Exegete [2001], 1-32, 7). 'Was Augustine an Intentionalist? Authorial Intention in Augustine's Hermeneutics' 9 together with important restricting caveats about human authorial intention. Or perhaps it would be more adequate to say that he promoted Intentionalism with a capital ‘I’, which prioritized the divine intention(s).