Abstract

In this essay, I argue, along with Saint Augustine, that there is a direct similarity between Holy Scripture and what is commonly known as ‘the letter’. The letter, or epistolary form, serves as a metaphor for Scripture in the following way. In the metaphor of the letter, we recognize three essential elements: the sender or author, the recipient, and the message. These three elements can be grasped according to the philosophical system of Christian neoplatonism, a system which Augustine subscribed to as he explained in his writings especially in Expositions of the Psalms the metaphor of the Letter from God. Augustine’s outstanding work, The City of God, also will serve our understanding of this metaphor.