Didascalicon, Book VI: how Scripture is to be read
Chapter III. On history and the books to be read in it
This surely ought to be done in learning: that you first learn history, and, tracing the truth of things done from the beginning to the end, commit to memory diligently what was done, by whom it was done, and where it was done. For these four things especially are to be sought in history: person, business, time and place. Nor do I think you can become perfectly subtle in allegory unless you have first been grounded in history. Do not despise these least things. They fail little by little who despise the least. If you had despised learning the alphabet at first, you would not now have even the name among the grammarians. I know there are some who wish to philosophize at once, who say that fables are to be left to the pseudo-apostles. Their knowledge is like the form of an ass. Do not imitate such.
Steeped in small things, you will safely attempt great ones.
I dare affirm that I never despised anything that pertained to learning, but often learned many things which to others seemed like a jest or a raving. I remember that while I was still a scholar I labored to know the names of all things set before the eyes or coming into use, weighing that he cannot freely follow the nature of things who is still ignorant of their names. How often I exacted of myself a daily debt of my sophisms, which for brevity I had marked in a page with one or two words, so that I held in memory the solutions and the number of nearly all the sentences, questions and oppositions I had learned. I often formed causes, and arranged them against each other in controversies; I diligently distinguished what would be the office of the rhetor, of the orator, of the sophist. I set counters in number, and painted the pavement with black charcoal; and, with the very example set before the eyes, I plainly showed what the difference was between the obtuse, right and acute triangle; I learned whether a square, equilateral, with its two sides multiplied, filled the area, the foot-measure running through on both. Often I was wont to lead to a number the strings stretched on the wood of the Magadis, that I might perceive the difference of tones by the ear and likewise delight the mind with sweetness. These were indeed childish things, yet not useless. Nor does it now burden my stomach to know them. I do not repeat these to you in order to boast of my knowledge, which is either none or small, but to show you that he walks most fittingly who walks in order, and not as some who, while they wish to make a great leap, fall into a precipice. As in virtues so in the sciences there are certain degrees. But you say: I find many things in the histories which seem to be of no use; why should I be occupied in such? You say well. For there are many things in the Scriptures which, considered in themselves, seem to have nothing worth desiring, which yet, if you compare them with the others with which they cohere, and begin to weigh them in their whole, you will see to be equally necessary and fitting. Some things are to be known for their own sake; others, though they do not seem worthy of our labor for their own sake, yet because without them those cannot be known with clarity, ought by no means to be passed over negligently. Learn everything; afterwards you will see that nothing is superfluous. Knowledge that is cramped is not pleasant.
As to the books which are useful for this reading, if you ask what seems good to me, these I think should be more frequented: Genesis, Exodus, Josue, the book of Judges, and of Kings, and Paralipomenon. Of the New Testament, first the four Gospels, then the Acts of the Apostles. These eleven seem to me to pertain more to history, except those which we properly call historiographers. If, however, we use the signification of this word more broadly, there is no inconvenience in saying that “history” is “not only the narration of things done, but that first signification of any narration whatever which is expressed according to the propriety of the words.” According to this acceptation I think that all the books of both Testaments, in the order in which they are enumerated above, pertain to this reading according to the literal sense. And perhaps, if it did not seem childish, I should insert in this place some precepts on the manner of construing; because I know that divine Scripture is more concise than all others in its text; but I wish to omit these, lest by too much interposition I extend my purpose. There are certain places in the divine page which cannot be read according to the letter, which must be discerned with great discretion, lest either through negligence we pass over something, or through importunate diligence violently twist it to that for which it was not written. This, then, O reader, is what we set before you: this field of your labor, well furrowed by the plow, will bring you a manifold fruit. All things were done in order; walk in order; by the shadow one comes to the body. Learn the figure and you will find the truth. Nor do I say this now so that you should labor to unroll first the figures of the Old Testament and search its mystical sayings before you come to drink the streams of the Gospel. But as you see that every building lacking a foundation cannot be stable, so it is also in doctrine. The foundation and principle of sacred doctrine is history, from which, as honey from the comb, truth is allegorically pressed out. When you are about to build, then, first lay the foundation of history; then through typical signification raise the structure of the mind to the citadel of faith; lastly, through the grace of morality, paint the building, as with a most beautiful color laid over it. You have in history what to marvel at in God’s deeds, in allegory what to believe of his sacraments, in morality what to imitate of his perfection. Read, therefore, and learn that in the beginning God created heaven and earth (Gen. 1). Read that in the beginning he planted a paradise of pleasure, in which he placed the man whom he had formed (Gen. 2); the sinner he drove out and cast down into the miseries of this world. Read how from one man the whole offspring of the human race descended, how then the wave of the flood overwhelmed sinners, how divine clemency preserved Noe the just with his sons in the midst of the waters, how then Abraham received the seal of faith, and afterwards Israel went down into Egypt; how then God led the children of Israel out of Egypt by the hand of Moses and Aaron through the Red Sea, fed them in the desert, gave the Law, settled them in the land of promise, and the many other things he did. At last, when the world was now wavering, he sent his Son in the flesh, promised eternal life to penitents, sending the apostles into the whole world, foretold that he would come at the end of the ages to judgment, to render to every one according to his works, namely to sinners eternal fire, but to the just eternal life and a kingdom of which there shall be no end (Luke 1). See that from the time the world began until the end of the ages the mercies of God do not fail.