Commentary Purg XXIX 64-66

Those dressed in the white of faith in Christ to come (we will soon find out that they represent the Hebrew Scriptures) are presented as followers of the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit or of the seven spirits of God (Apoc. 4:4), not as the leaders they surely were on their own terms.  Marchesi (Marc.2002.2) argues that Augustine's discussion of biblical hermeneutics in De Doctrina. II.7 helps to define more precisely the nature and role of the seven candlesticks in the procession.  Augustine, prescribing a spiritual discipline for biblical interpreters, patterns his instruction on the seven spiritual gifts (Isaiah 11:2-3).  These gifts are the spirits of wisdom, intellect, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of God (sapientia, intellectus, consilium, fortitudo, scientia, pietas, and timor Dei).  Just as in Dante's procession the candlesticks precede the pageant of the canonical books and cover them with their sevenfold light, so in Augustine the discussion of the seven gifts is preliminary to his treatment of the biblical canon in De Doctrina. II.8 and frames that discussion.