History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom

by Andrew Dickson White

The genius and power of Origen made a great impression on the strong thinkers who followed him. St. Jerome called him "the greatest master in the Church since the apostles," and Athanasius was hardly less emphatic.

The structure thus begun was continued by leading theologians during the centuries following: St. Hilary of Poitiers—"the Athanasius of Gaul"—produced some wonderful results of this method; but St. Jerome, inspired by the example of the man whom he so greatly admired, went beyond him. A triumph of his exegesis is seen in his statement that the Shunamite damsel who was selected to cherish David in his old age signified heavenly wisdom.

The great mind of St. Augustine was drawn largely into this kind of creation, and nothing marks more clearly the vast change which had come over the world than the fact that this greatest of the early Christian thinkers turned from the broader paths opened by Plato and Aristotle into that opened by Clement of Alexandria.

In the mystic power of numbers to reveal the sense of Scripture Augustine found especial delight. He tells us that there is deep meaning in sundry scriptural uses of the number forty, and especially as the number of days required for fasting. Forty, he reminds us, is four times ten. Now, four, he says, is the number especially representing time, the day and the year being each divided into four parts; while ten, being made up of three and seven, represents knowledge of the Creator and creature, three referring to the three persons in the triune Creator, and seven referring to the three elements, heart, soul, and mind, taken in connection with the four elements, fire, air, earth, and water, which go to make up the creature. Therefore this number ten, representing knowledge, being multiplied by four, representing time, admonishes us to live during time according to knowledge—that is, to fast for forty days. Referring to such misty methods as these, which lead the reader to ask himself whether he is sleeping or waking, St. Augustine remarks that "ignorance of numbers prevents us from understanding such things in Scripture." But perhaps the most amazing example is to be seen in his notes on the hundred and fifty and three fishes which, according to St. John's Gospel, were caught by St. Peter and the other apostles. Some points in his long development of this subject may be selected to show what the older theological method could be made to do for a great mind. He tells us that the hundred and fifty and three fishes embody a mystery; that the number ten, evidently as the number of the commandments, indicates the law; but, as the law without the spirit only kills, we must add the seven gifts of the spirit, and we thus have the number seventeen, which signifies the old and new dispensations; then, if we add together every several number which seventeen contains from one to seventeen inclusive, the result is a hundred and fifty and three—the number of the fishes. With this sort of reasoning he finds profound meanings in the number of furlongs mentioned in he sixth chapter of St. John. Referring to the fact that the disciples had rowed about "twenty-five or thirty furlongs," he declares that "twenty-five typifies the law, because it is five times five, but the law was imperfect before the gospel came; now perfection is comprised in six, since God in six days perfected the world, hence five is multiplied by six that the law may be perfected by the gospel, and six times five is thirty."

But Augustine's exploits in exegesis were not all based on numerals; he is sometimes equally profound in other modes. Thus he tells us that the condemnation of the serpent to eat dust typifies the sin of curiosity, since in eating dust he "penetrates the obscure and shadowy"; and that Noah's ark was "pitched within and without with pitch" to show the safety of the Church from the leaking in of heresy.

Still another exploit—one at which the Church might well have stood aghast—was his statement that the drunkenness of Noah prefigured the suffering and death of Christ. It is but just to say that he was not the original author of this interpretation: it had been presented long before by St. Cyprian. But this was far from Augustine's worst. Perhaps no interpretation of Scripture has ever led to more cruel and persistent oppression, torture, and bloodshed than his reading into one of the most beautiful parables of Jesus of Nazareth—into the words "Compel them to come in"—a warrant for religious persecution: of all unintended blasphemies since the world began, possibly the most appalling. Another strong man follows to fasten these methods on the Church: St. Gregory the Great. In his renowned work on the book of Job, the Magna Moralia, given to the world at the end of the sixth century, he lays great stress on the deep mystical meanings of the statement that Job had seven sons. He thinks the seven sons typify the twelve apostles, for "the apostles were selected through the sevenfold grace of the Spirit; moreover, twelve is produced from seven—that is, the two parts of seven, four and three, when multiplied together give twelve." He also finds deep significance in the number of the apostles; this number being evidently determined by a multiplication of the number of persons in the Trinity by the number of quarters of the globe. Still, to do him justice, it must be said that in some parts of his exegesis the strong sense which was one of his most striking characteristics crops out in a way very refreshing. Thus, referring to a passage in the first chapter of Job, regarding the oxen which were ploughing and the asses which were feeding beside them, he tells us pithily that these typify two classes of Christians: the oxen, the energetic Christians who do the work of the Church; the asses, the lazy Christians who merely feed.(466)

(466) For Origen, see the De Principiis, book iv, chaps. i-vii et seq.,
Crombie's translation; also the Contra Celsum, vol. vi, p. 70; vol.
vii, p. 20, etc.; also various citations in Farrar. For Hilary, see his
Tractatus super Psalmos, cap. ix, li, etc. in Migne, vol. ix, and De
Trinitate, lib. ii, cap. ii. For Jerome's interpretation of the text
relating to the Shunamite woman, see Epist. lii, in Migne, vol. xxii,
pp. 527, 528. For Augustine's use of numbers, see the De Doctrina
Christiana, lib. ii, cap. xvi; and for the explanation of the draught of
fishes, see Augustine in, In Johan. Evangel., tractat. cxxii; and on the
twenty-five to thirty furlongs, ibid., tract. xxv, cap. 6; and for the
significance of the serpent eating dust, De Gen., lib. ii, c. 18. or the
view that the drunkenness of Noah prefigured the suffering of Christ, as
held by SS. Cyprian and Augustine, see Farrar, as above, pp. 181, 238.
For St. Gregory, see the Magna Moralia, lib. i, cap. xiv.

Thus began the vast theological structure of oracular interpretation applied to the Bible. As we have seen, the men who prepared the ground for it were the rabbis of Palestine and the Hellenized Jews of Alexandria; and the four great men who laid its foundation courses were Origen, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and St. Gregory.

During the ten centuries following the last of these men this structure continued to rise steadily above the plain meanings of Scripture. The Christian world rejoiced in it, and the few great thinkers who dared bring the truth to bear upon it were rejected. It did indeed seem at one period in the early Church that a better system might be developed. The School of Antioch, especially as represented by Chrysostom, appeared likely to lead in this better way, but the dominant forces were too strong; the passion for myth and marvel prevailed over the love of real knowledge, and the reasonings of Chrysostom and his compeers were neglected.(467)

(467) For the work of the School of Antioch, and especially of
Chrysostom, see the eloquent tribute to it by Farrar, as above.