Abstract
Origen encouraged readers of the Bible to try to penetrate beneath the literal meaning to deeper truths which lay hidden in the figurative and metaphorical senses. Augustine and Gregory the Great made it a commonplace in the mediaeval West that the literal sense is only one of several possible intepretations of a given passage, and that the figurative meanings are full of spiritual riches, and bring the reader closer to the Divine Author’s intentions. For Origen the Bible, taken spiritually, is the ultimate source of truth. The same high doctrine of the spiritual sense is apparent in the rules of Tichonius the Donatist, to which Augustine gave such lasting currency. Tichonius sees his rules as ‘keys’ to open up and ‘lamps’ to reveal the secrets hidden above all in the treasury of truth. He is interested in clarifying the spiritual senses.
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