Saturday, January 30, 2010

Scripture

I have been reading St Augustine's On Christian Doctrine which is about Scriptural exegesis, and in regard to that I like this medieval summary:

Litera gesta docet,
Quid credas allegoria,
Moralis quid agas,
Quo tendas anagogia.

See here and here.

Loose translation:

The literal sense teaches deeds that were done,
The allegorical, what we are to believe
The moral, how to live our lives
The anagogical, where we are going.

The day after I wrote that out I found it in the Catechism.
I love those little coincidences, if they could be called so.

St Francis de Sales recommends
reading Scripture or hearing it read (as, for example, in daily Mass), and imitating Mary who, as it says more than once in the Gospel of Luke, "kept these sayings in her heart."

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