On Reading Old Texts

A few more unexpected benefits

Photo by Jonathan Greenaway on Unsplash

I firmly believe in the goodness of reading old texts, and I’m not alone in this. We’ll find what is one of the best arguments for this written by C.S. Lewis in his introduction to Athanasius’s On the Incarnation. Lewis writes beautifully on the importance of using old texts specifically in order to “correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period.”¹ This truth has panned out within my own experience, and I reference it in my own book as we think through our important job as hobbyists who take the title of Historian and Beholder. To Lewis’s comments, I’d add a bit more. While reading, I’ve noticed our generational blind spots hide not only in arguments, but even in style and form. These differences I’ve observed within the church fathers and mothers has both brought me encouragement as well as conviction. Here are just a few examples:

1. Where are all the citations?

Augustine wouldn’t make it past the Chicago Style editors, that’s for sure. Of course we can’t blame him—chapters and verses weren’t added into the Bible until the 13th century, so it makes sense that he and many other writers wouldn’t fill their manuscripts with references in neat little parentheses at the end of each sentence. Yet I’ve found I really enjoy seeing Scripture interwoven in the text in this manner. It doesn’t feel like the references are a formality, but it feels as if the word of God is pouring out of the author’s heart. Its uninterrupted presence gives the feeling that these words have been sinking their roots in and the fruit can’t help but come bursting out. For these writers, this was the reality. Scripture was filling up their memory and their brain constantly. These saints were known to memorize full passages and books of the Bible, mulling them over in their heads. The Spirit used that constant rumination to produce the richness of their writings. These Scripture saturated words echoed the beauty of Scripture itself—of the prophets and apostles, whose allusions and connections seeped through every paragraph.

I’m not arguing that contemporary authors aren’t similarly steeped in Scripture, but simply that the absence of references allows me the chance to see it a little clearer. It forces me to remember that long before Google and Bible software, saints were so steeped in the Bible that they could write so richly with no need of such help. It offers me another chance to see what it looks like to have Scripture inform and fill up the mind and to feel the prick of conviction to want to do the same.

2. I don’t talk that way

Another particular difference I’ve been noticing as I read through Confessions is the way Augustine addresses God. Phrases about throughout his book like “Oh God of my joy”, “Oh my true Life, my God”, “God of my Love,” and one of my favorites “O Loveliness that dost not deceive.”² Confessions has the unique approach of being an autobiography as well as a kind of prayer to God, so it follows that labels for God might be used. But this language of adoration offers us a chance to note the differences in the kind of language we use to speak about God.

Whether we like it or not, our modern language and culture has influenced how we think about God and how we believe we should address him. In our times the kind of adoring language Augustine uses might feel excessive, fake, or maybe even suspicious. That’s what makes it so helpful to read saints of old expressing their praise to God in language we’re not used to using ourselves. It pulls us our of our comfortable phrases, and helps us see the kind of devotion we are sometimes too embarrassed to express. It mirrors the devotion of David in the Scripture who thirsted for the Lord as a deer pants for streams of water (Ps. 42:1). We don’t speak in these poetic ways so much anymore. But as we read old texts we are challenged to ask, maybe we should?

3. Starting a new conversation

Finally, I am always pleasantly surprised with the gift of conversation with the saints who lived before me. What an unimaginable gift to have words that have been preserved for us to read, learn from, and interact with! We can easily ignore this gift sometimes. Those in academia might be prone to take it for granted, while the regular-saint-in-the-pew like me might think it is unreachable. We believe those texts are for scholars—it will be too hard, too strange, and even too boring.

Yet every time I open up an old text, I’m amazed at the fact that I actually can enter into the conversation. I start reading and discover a man or woman not that different—who followed after the same Christ, read the same Scriptures, and prayed with the same fervor for hope, help, and strength to obey. I realize it’s not all that scary or unreachable. Their words remind me of the same truths in the Bible that I read. Yes of course these saints are overwhelmingly wiser, more learned and thoughtful than I- but still I can sit myself down and listen. I even get to talk back as I think through, question, and push back in my own mind on their arguments and application.

It’s funny how we open up the Bible to read and study that ancient text full of such wonder and complexity breathed out by the Lord, yet we fear we are unable to attempt reading the uninspired words of the human saints who commented upon it. In the Bible, the Lord has already spread a feast before us in the ancient words of the past. We learn the weightiest of ancient truths every Sunday morning. And we can continue to learn from his people who have commented on those beautiful words throughout all centuries after. In doing so, we get to join a conversation of believers who adore the God who made us all.

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I love talking about the way the Lord shows his goodness and beauty amidst the everyday. If you do too, check out my upcoming book, Created to Play: How Taking Hobbies Seriously Grows Us Spiritually. (You can even get the download the first chapter today!)

1. C.S. Lewis, Introduction to On the Incarnation.

2. Augustine, Confessions, various sections from Books 1-3.