Introduction

Can nature be interpreted like a book?The expression "book of nature" appears first in Augustine's writing and develops in the Middle Ages into a theology of the readability of nature.Augustine himself uses the metaphor in a rather nonchalant way, but not as a standing expression.He speaks of "the book of created nature (magnus liber ipsa species creaturae).Look carefully at it top and bottom, observe it, read it.God did not make letters of ink for you to recognize him in; he set before your eyes all these things he has made."Augustine then goes on to tell Faustus, a Manichean, that he "should first look at the whole of creation as if reading a certain great book about the nature of things (quasi legens magnum quendam librum naturae rerum)."Although Augustine uses the metaphor only twice throughout his vast work, the concept seems to underlie his exegetical practice, as can be gleaned from his exegesis of the creation story and his theology of the Trinity.Similar tendencies are also found in earlier Christian writers.Rabbinic scholars saw the Torah as the blueprint for creation.The correlation between the divine realm and nature, the understanding of creation through the biblical text and viceversa, emerges thus not only as a common theme, but as a common sense in Late Antiquity, which left distinct marks on the period's knowledge production.Especially the marvels of the earth, of creation, are understood as permanent signs that reflect and point to higher truths which God hid in his creation.In this logic, God was a "signifying creator," as Michael D. Swartz has pointed out: "the idea that This research was

Narrative · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Religion, Ecology, and Ethics