In addition to the importance of intertextuality, critical theory has latterly reminded us of the problematic relationship between language and its referent. For the Fathers, reference constituted meaning, and inappropriate interpretations could be challenged by consideration of that to which the language referred. Although language could have a ‘biblical meaning’ discernible by multiplying cross-references, text being interpreted by text, ascertaining reference was far more fundamental to patristic exegesis than determining the sense of the words. Discussion of the traditional ‘senses of scripture’ (literal, allegorical, tropological and so on) does not provide a key to method as such. A complex grid of ‘reading strategies’ plotted against a typology of multiple senses illuminates a fundamentally ‘sacramental’ understanding of the meaning of scripture: the linguistic sign represented the reality to which it referred, whether transparently or obliquely.