In his treatise against Faustus the Manichean, Augustine cites 1 Timothy4 in a discussion of clean and unclean foods. He is trying to demonstrate the harmony of Old and New, and parrying Faustus’ claim that Catholics as much as Manicheans reject the Old Testament. Augustine explains that when Paul said that all things are clean and that every creature is good, he was talking “about their natures.” When earlier texts describe some created things as unclean, they were not talking about nature “but because of what they signified, on account of certain prophetic signs suited to that time.”
I wonder: To what extent is the distinction of nature and signification a product of the coming of the New Covenant order? And I wonder: To what degree was Augustine’s qualifying “suited to the time” a category available to Jews or Gentiles in the old covenant?
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