The Bathsheba and Uriah episode in the life of David was of course taken allegorically, and affords a curious example of a patristic interpretation originating in the exigencies of controversy, and then becoming authoritative for later periods when the echoes of the old controversy had long been silent. Augustine was called upon to answer the book of the clever Manichaean, Faustus, the stress of whose attacks was directed against the Old Testament. Faustus declared that he did not blaspheme "the law and the prophets," but rejected merely the special Hebrew customs and the vile calumnies of the Old Testament writers, imputing shameful acts to prophets and patriarchs. In his list of shocking narratives to be rejected, was the story "that David after having had such a number of wives, defiled the little woman of Uriah his soldier, and caused him to be slain in battle."[1]
Augustine responds with a general exclamation at the Manichaean's failure to understand the sacramental symbols (sacramenta) of the Law and the deeds of the prophets. He then speaks of certain Old Testament statements regarding God and His demands, and proceeds to consider the nature of sin and the questionable deeds of the prophets. Some of the reprehended deeds he justifies, as, for instance, Abraham's intercourse with Hagar and his deceit in telling Abimelech that Sara was his sister when she was his wife. He also declares that Sara typifies the Church, which is the secret spouse of Christ. Proceeding further, he does not justify, but palliates, the conduct of Lot and his daughters, and then introduces its typological significance. At length he comes to David. First he gives a noble estimate of David's character, his righteousness, his liability to sin, and his quick penitence.[2] Afterwards he considers, briefly as he says, what David's sin with Bathsheba signifies prophetically.[3] The passage may be given to show what a mixture of banality and disregard of moral propriety in drawing analogies might emanate from the best mind among the
- ↑ Contra Faustum, xxii. 1-5.
- ↑ Contra Faustum, xxii. 66-68.
- ↑ Augustine's method in this twenty-second Book is first to consider the actual sinfulness or justification of these deeds, and afterwards to take up in succession their typological significance. So, for example, he discusses the blamefulness of Judah's conduct with Tamar in par. 61-64 and its typology in 83-86.
