Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.01.2013, Qupperneq 18

Thus, Augustine sees the Church as having two inspired versions of
the Old Testament, despite the fact that they differ from each other. He
explains: “For the same Spirit who was in the prophets when they spoke
these things was also in the seventy men when they translated them, so
that assuredly they could also say something else, just as if the prophet
himself had said both, because it would be the same Spirit who said both;
and [they] could say the same thing differently, so that, although the words
were not the same, yet the same meaning should shine forth to those of
good understanding; and [finally they] could omit or add something.”11
And Augustine goes on to say: “If anything is in the Hebrew copies and is
not in the version of the Seventy, the Spirit of God did not choose to say
it through them, but only through the prophets. But whatever is in the
Septuagint and not in the Hebrew copies, the same Spirit choose rather to
say through the latter, thus showing that both were prophets.”12
More problematical, however, is the case, when the difference between the
LXX and the Hebrew texts is not merely a matter of plus or minus, but where
instead the two versions contain contradictory statements. In this case too, for
Augustine, the doctrine of a twofold inspiration canonizing both the Greek
and the Hebrew versions, excludes the possibility of text-critically correcting
the one on the basis of the other; at best one might argue that inattentive
copyists within the LXX tradition had introduced errors into the text.
With this background in mind, I propose to present some concrete
examples of Augustine’s exegesis. First, we should note that the Quaestiones
have certain characteristics specific to their literary form. They were not
intended as a continuous commentary, instead Augustine takes up indivi-
dual issues that had been raised by those who listened to his sermons or
had been put forward by the Manichaeans as arguments against the Old
Testament or that simply happened to appear important to him from a
theological point of view.
Beginning with some rather harmless examples, I will show how concre-
tely Augustine reads the biblical narratives as factual reports down to the
last detail.
11 Augusdne, De ciuitate dei libri uiginti duo XVIII,43,26-33; transladon: Philip Schaff, St.
Augustine’s City of God and Christian Doctrine (A Select Library oft he Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers of the Chrisdan Church, II, 386), Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1977, 386.
12 Augusdne, De ciuitate dei libri uiginti duo XVIII,43,52-57.
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