St. Augustine himself warns that “to begin with, one must take care not to not to interpret a figurative expression literally” (72). However, it is difficult not to try and extricate literal meaning housed in religious allusions from “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine. This particular Dylan song was recorded in 1967 for the album John Wesley Harding, a title which has also been the subject of religious speculation. Some critics believe that the entire album is centered around Dylan’s struggle with his religion and the album title exemplifies it because John Wesley Harding (JWH) could be representative of Jahweh (name of God). Although Dylan admits that he just wanted to write a ballad about a cowboy and the album grew from there. Nevertheless, it seems that the song “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine” must necessarily have religious implications if the main subject is the great theological figure from Hippo.  In On Christian Teaching, St. Augustine claims that “no one disputes that it is much more pleasant to learn lessons presented through imagery, and much more rewarding to discover meanings that are won only with difficulty” (33). So, what sort of lesson is Dylan hoping that we learn from this melodious dream sequence?

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In the first two verses of the song, Dylan paints the picture of a blanket-wielding St. Augustine calling out to the souls who had already been doomed for original sin and did not heed his warning. Then Dylan admits that he also did not heed his words and he hangs his head in shame because he is also guilty for the death of St. Augustine and perhaps the death of his own spiritual journey. Dylan may have hung his head because he felt less than a man since he had not given enough credence to the teachings of warnings of St. Augustine and the church itself because “a person is at his best when in his whole life he strives towards the unchangeable form of life and holds fast to it wholeheartedly” (17). Perhaps the purpose of sharing this dream with his audience wasn’t necessarily about the saint who tried to save the souls of wayward Christians, but for “he who chose to lay himself down as the way by which we could return have done anything more generous and merciful than to forgive the converted all their sins and, by being crucified for us, pull out the firmly fixed barriers for our return?” (15). Another interpretation of the figure or sign of St. Augustine could be that Dylan saw himself as the “martyr among ye now.” Although St. Augustine wasn’t a martyr in the traditional definition, he did die when the Vandals invaded Hippo and was a victim of a mob massacre. Maybe Dylan saw himself as this martyred figure and worried that he too may become a victim to the mob of his following—he had become a prophetic figure for his generation whether he believed he deserved it or not.

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Perhaps due to varying interpretations of figurative language, symbols, and signs such as these is why St. Augustine warned that “the ambiguities of metaphorical words…require no ordinary care and attention…For when something meant figuratively is interpreted as if it were meant literally, it is understood in a carnal way” (72). Or in other words, if we take something that is metaphorical and ethereal and put it into literal and mundane terms, then we have robbed it of its sublime meaning and brought it down to a secular sign at the carnal (human) level. I think that Dylan would agree with St. Augustine on this point because he recognized the human tendency to bring things down when they don’t understand the inherent meaning because “there's no black and white, left and right to me anymore; there's only up and down and down is very close to the ground.”  Dylan always wanted his music and lyrics to remain grounded because that is what people understood and that was how he could get his greater truths to the greatest amount of listeners.

St. Augustine. On Christian Teaching. Trans. R.P.H. Green. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.