Rightly it is so managed, because the purity of eloquence is hidden altogether from the promiscuous eyes of the crowd, as if it were covered by a garment of modesty. Here, we find the interior of the Lord's temple, here the holy of holies. The body, therefore, is the sacred scripture, as it has come down to us, as it is in letters, with the soul of moral sense, which is uttered in figures of speech, with the spirit of superior understanding, which names by analogy. Indeed, this differentiation is not dissimilar to our three-fold method of teaching, by which the heavenly scriptures are taught as philosophy, according to history, according to rhetoric, according to analogy, to whose who think otherwise. History, for this reason, instills in us the truth of deeds or faith in reporting.
Rhetoric takes the mind mysteriously back to the correction of life.
Analogy leads secretly to the heavenly figures. There are those who think that allegory is thrown in the fourth place in the class of knowledge, and they would confirm this by foreshadowing of future deeds in stories. Real knowledge, therefore, is spread from various sources. Contemplation, moreover, is derived in two parts, that is, it consists in historical discourse and in understanding spiritual knowledge. But now, let us put forth the clear formulas of spiritual knowledge, which we have promised, putting the usually accepted forms of each name with the associated text of divine reading.