Sanctified Souls Heritage Editions: Saint Augustine- On Christian Doctrine

In the years after he became a bishop, Augustine set out to teach the Church how to read her own Scriptures. On Christian Doctrine is the fruit of it - the first Christian treatise on interpretation, and the first Christian rhetoric - a book that shaped Christian learning for a thousand years.Augustine distinguishes things from the signs that stand for them, and lays down the rule that governs all the rest: no reading of Scripture is true that does not build up the love of God and of neighbor. The first three Books teach the discovery of meaning - the knowledge of languages, of nature and of number, of the useful part of pagan learning, and the rules for reading what is figurative or obscure. The fourth Book teaches its expression, turning the eloquence Augustine once sold in the schools to the service of the Gospel. This Sanctified Souls Press edition sets the complete text of the four Books and the Preface in the translation of J. F. Shaw, 1873.