In his seminal work, De Doctrina Christiana, Augustine of Hippo articulates the sophisticated rhetorical nature of biblical language, asserting:  "I would have learned men to know that the authors of our Scriptures use all those forms of expression which grammarians call by the Greek name tropes, and use them more freely and in greater variety than people who are unacquainted with the Scriptures, and have learned these figures of speech from other writings, can imagine or believe. Nevertheless, those who know these tropes recognize them in Scripture, and are very much assisted by their knowledge of them in understanding Scripture."

Although Augustine does not provide an exhaustive taxonomy of these rhetorical devices, one that undoubtedly aligns with his observations is chiasmus (or chiasm). [1] This structural and stylistic feature derives its name from the Greek letter chi (Χ), which reflects its distinctive inverting pattern. As a rhetorical device, chiasmus is characterized by symmetry, inversion, and parallelism, directing the reader toward a focal point before retracing the thematic structure in reverse order. The rhetorical function of chiasmus extends beyond mere stylistic embellishment; it serves as a hermeneutical aid, drawing attention to key theological and literary emphases within a given text. 

Mary Douglas underscores the structural and interpretive significance of chiasmus, describing it as "[A] construction of parallelism that must open a theme, develop it, and round it off by bringing the conclusion back to the beginning."[2] Thus, in chiasmus, the form itself is didactic; the arrangement of ideas is not incidental but integral to the meaning conveyed. By guiding the audience through a mirrored sequence, this literary structure reinforces its central message while ensuring that the process of interpretation is shaped as much by the textual architecture as by its explicit content.

[1]  Marjorie Suchocki. "The Symbolic Structure of Augustine's" Confessions"." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 50, no. 3 (1982): 365-378; and William A. Stephany “Thematic Structure in Augustine’s Confessions,” Augustinian Studies 20 (1989):129 – 142

[2] Mary Douglas, Thinking in Circles: An Essay on Ring Composition (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2010), x.