c. 160
Greek
Letter to Flora
Ptolemy
A courteous letter to an enquiring woman dividing the law of Moses into three parts — from God, from Moses, and from the elders — and treating each differently.
101–200
The Second Century
1 work
301–400
The Fourth Century
2 works
c. 380–385
Latin
The Book of Rules
Liber Regularum
Tyconius · c. 330–c. 390
Seven rules for reading scripture consistently — on the Lord and his body, on the bipartite church, on promise and law, on species and genus, on times, on recapitulation, and on the devil and his body.
Donatist · Hermeneutics
begun 397, finished 426
Latin
On Christian Teaching
De Doctrina Christiana
Augustine of Hippo · 354 – 430
How to read the Bible and how to preach it. Things are to be used or enjoyed, and only God is to be enjoyed; a reading that builds up love is not wrong even if it misses the writer's intent, though it should be corrected; and the plunder of Egypt justifies taking whatever is true in pagan learning.
Western · TreatiseExodusMatthew1 CorinthiansRomans
401–500
The Fifth Century
1 work
397–426
Latin
On Christian Teaching
De Doctrina Christiana
Augustine of Hippo · 354–430
How to read the Bible and how to preach it: signs and things, the rule of love as the test of any interpretation, and a final book on using classical rhetoric without being used by it.
Early Church · HermeneuticsMatthew1 Corinthians
501–600
The Sixth Century
1 work
c. 542
Latin
Handbook of the Divine Law
Instituta Regularia Divinae Legis
Junillus Africanus
A catechism-style introduction to reading scripture — its kinds of book, its authority, its style — adapted from a Syriac original of the school of Nisibis.
Western · Hermeneutics
1501–1600
The Sixteenth Century
2 works
c. 1563; published 1937
Latin
The Art of Doubting and Believing
Sebastian Castellio · 1515–1563
An argument that many scriptural questions are genuinely obscure, that certainty is not required for salvation, and that doubt is a discipline rather than a sin.
Reformed · Philosophy
1567
Latin
Key to the Sacred Scriptures
Clavis Scripturae Sacrae
Matthias Flacius Illyricus · 1520–1575
A biblical dictionary and a treatise on interpretation arguing that scripture is clear in itself and must be read according to its own idiom, context, and aim.
Lutheran · Hermeneutics