In the hermeneutics of St. Augustine
Summary
Romik Kh. Kocharyan
The calling and fulfillment of St. Augustine’s “Sacred Hermeneutics” is to
become and improve as an intra-holistic science teaching, revealing its own
foundation and goal-setting, an explicating order of rules that formulate the
possibilities of reliable understanding and interpretation of the wisdom of Holy
Scripture. In his treatise “Christian Science” he presents a general, therefore, and
teaching interpretation scientific concept of understanding and interpretation of the
wisdom of Holy Scripture. His concept of hermeneutics can be presented as a
general scientific concept teaching the interpretation of the wisdom of Holy
Scripture, if it is purposeful and capable of reaching and interpreting the divine
spoken in the Bible, which is mentally seen and accomplished in his hermeneutic
treatise. According to his teaching, “Sacred Hermeneutics” is a scientific
concept of understanding and interpretation of the sacrament of wisdom,
revealing the truth of the truly divine, contained in the sense- and/or counselstories
of by God inspired sacred writings. And summarizing, it can be stated
that “Sacred Hermeneutics” is the science of counsel-knowledge of
understanding and interpretation of the wisdom revealing the “divine” in the
all-being. In his hermeneutic concept, St. Augustine formulated the order and
system of rules of understanding and interpretation of the wisdom contained in the
Holy Scripture: both the fundamental principles and general rules, and special
rules. Initially, he explores the problem of knowledge and the means necessary to
understand direct phrases and collocations, and then formulates general and
specific rules for understanding and interpreting allegory. According to St.
Augustine, any ambiguity is signified by a direct or allegorical meaning of words,
phrases and collocations. The interpretation of the direct meaning and counsel of
the wisdom of Holy Scripture should be interpreted from the point of view of the
interconnectedness of the parts to the formation of sense, the law of faith, the goaland
whole-forming interconnection of the context. According to his hermeneutic
teaching, in the complex problem of interpreting of the wisdom of Holy Scripture,
twofold of the direct meaning, it is also necessary to comprehend the allegorical
wisdom’s counsel-knowledge. Directness and ambiguity should be identified in
accordance with the intent of the Holy Scriptures teaching morality. And St.
Augustine formulates the rules of interpretation in accordance with the
fundamental intention and accomplishment of the Holy Scriptures: by the
elimination of “lust” in people’s thoughts, souls and life – to achieve an increase in
“love”.