The Letter Kills, the Spirit gives Life

December 17, 2025

I was also pleased that when the old writings of the Law and the Prophets came before me, they were no longer read with an eye to which they had previously looked absurd, when I used to attack your saints as if they thought what in fact they did not think at all. And I was delighted to hear Ambrose in his sermons to the people saying, as if he were most carefully enunciating a principle of exegesis: ‘The letter kills, the spirit gives life’ (2 Cor. 3: 6).8 Those texts which, taken literally, seemed to contain perverse teaching he would expound spiritually, removing the mystical veil

~ Saint Augustine, Confession, VI (6)

Also see Dynamics of Faith.