Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
In addition to the canons which I prefixed to the Major Prophets, receive these ones, which are almost proper to the Minor Prophets.
Canon I
CANON I. The Prophets, in the proper names of persons or cities, allude to their meanings, both for elegance and for force and emphasis; wherefore our Translator often rendered their meanings instead of the Hebrew names themselves. Such is, first, Hosea I, 6, where Hosea, having begotten a daughter from the harlot at God's command, hears from God: "Call her name Without Mercy," in Hebrew Lo Rachama. This, then, was the proper name of the daughter. But because lo rachama means without mercy, and God presses this meaning here, saying: "Because I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel;" hence the Translator skillfully rendered it "Without Mercy." In the same place, verse 9, when Hosea again begot a son from her, he hears: "Call his name, Not My People;" in Hebrew Lo Ammi. This, then, was the proper name of the son. But the keen-sighted Translator, seeing that an allusion is made to the meaning of the name, rightly rendered it: "Not My People." For there follows: "Because you are not My people, and I will not be yours." Likewise ch. X, 5: "The inhabitants of Samaria, he says, have worshipped the calves of Bethaven." For Jeroboam set up golden calves to be worshipped in Bethel, which in Hebrew means the house of God, Gen. XXVIII, 17. But because Jeroboam placed idols there, hence Hosea and the Prophets call Bethel Bethaven, that is, the house of an idol, as if to say: You have changed Bethel into Bethaven, that is, you have turned the house of God into a house of idols and of the devil.
Second, such is Micah, ch. I, 10: "In the house of dust, sprinkle yourselves with dust." For 'dust' in Hebrew is Aphra, which is the proper name of a city. But because aphra means dust and the Prophet alludes to this, hence our Translator elegantly rendered it: "In the house of Aphra," that is, "of dust, sprinkle yourselves with dust." And verse 11: "Pass over, you beautiful dwelling," in Hebrew Sapir, which is the name of a city; but it means beautiful. And then: "She has not gone forth who dwells in the Place of Departure," in Hebrew in Zaanan, which is the name of a city, but signifies departure. And verse 12: "She who dwells in Bitterness has been weakened for good;" in Hebrew in Maroth, which is the name of a city; but it means bitternesses, as if to say: She who dwells in Maroth, that is, in bitternesses, has been weakened and embittered according to her name. And verse 14: "He shall give, etc., the houses of falsehood for a deception to the kings of Israel," in Hebrew Achzib, which is the name of a city, but signifies falsehood, and to this he alludes saying leachzab, that is, to deceive and delude the kings of Israel.
Third, such is Zechariah III, 8: "I will bring My servant the Orient," in Hebrew Tsemach, which is a name of Christ; but it means a sprout growing and rising from virgin soil, just as Christ was born of a virgin mother without a father.
Fourth, such is Gen. XXVI, 26, where Isaac, on account of the quarrel of the shepherds, called a well "Calumny," in Hebrew Esek. This, then, was the proper name of the well. And verse 21, he called another "Enmities" for a similar reason, in Hebrew Sitna. And verse 22, he called a third "Width," in Hebrew Rechoboth, saying: Now the Lord has given us room. And verse 33, he called a fourth "Abundance," in Hebrew Sabea. "Whence the name Beersheba was given to the city," as if to say, the well of fullness and abundance.
Fifth, such is II Kings VIII, 1: "David took the Bridle of Tribute from the hand of the Philistines;" in Hebrew David took Metheg-ammah, which is the proper name of a place or city, and signifies the Bridle of Tribute.
Sixth, such is II Kings XXI, 19: "Adeodatus the son of the Forest;" in Hebrew: Elchanan ben Jaare, which was the proper name of one of David's mighty men: but El means God, chanan means 'gave,' ben means 'son,' jaare means 'forest.'
Seventh, such is Proverbs XXX, 1: "The words of the Gatherer, son of the Vomiter;" in Hebrew: The words of Agur son of Jakeh. For Agur was a man and teacher, son of Jakeh, who dictated the following words; but Agur means 'one who gathers,' and Jakeh means 'one who vomits.'
Eighth, such is I Chronicles IV, 22: "Who made the sun stand still
and the men of Falsehood, and the Secure One, and the Burner." In Hebrew it is Joakim, and the men of Chozeba, and Joash, and Saraph: which are proper names of men; hence the Septuagint retained them. For there follows: "Who were princes in Moab." But Joakim means 'one who makes to stand,' Chozeba means 'falsehood,' Joash means 'secure,' and Saraph means 'burning.' In the same book, ch. II, 55: "The Kenites came from the Warmth of the father of the house of Rechab." In Hebrew: The Kenites came from Hamath the father of the house of Rechab. So the Septuagint, Pagninus, and the Tigurinus; but Hamath in Hebrew signifies warmth.
Ninth, such is the name Peter; for St. Peter in Syria was called by Christ by the Syriac name Cephas, whereas he was formerly called Simon, John ch. I, 42; but because in Syriac Cephas is the same as the Greek and Latin Petrus and Petra, namely the rock upon which Christ built His Church; hence from St. Matthew ch. XVI, 18, and upon coming to Rome he was thereafter called Peter by the Romans: just as Saul was called Paul: for Saul is a Hebrew name, Paul a Roman one.
Tenth, such is what is said of Job's three daughters in the last chapter, verse 14: "And he called the name of one Day, and the name of the second Cassia, and the name of the third Horn of Antimony." In Hebrew: And he called her name Jemimah, that is, Day, or more precisely Daily (for Jom is day; hence Jemimah is daily), and the name of the second Keziah, that is, Cassia, and the name of the third Keren-happuch, that is, Horn of Antimony. These three daughters, then, were properly called by Job Jemimah, Keziah, Keren-happuch; but the Translator rendered the meanings of their names, because Job alluded to them. Hear Nicetas: "Therefore, he says, he named the first daughter Day, because from the darkest night of afflictions he had been divinely restored to happiness, as if recalled to behold the light of day; he called the second Cassia, because he now enjoyed a certain sweetness of fragrant odor and the pleasure of good things; he called the third Horn of Amalthea (for so the Septuagint translates it), because he thereafter lived a life overflowing with every kind of good." And Olympiodorus, and from him Vatablus: He named his daughters thus, he says, as a memorial of both his fortunes, the prosperous and the adverse, as if he had now returned from darkness to day and light, from the stench of the dunghill on which he had sat to fragrance, from the filth of corruption and sores to splendor and beauty. Hence for 'horn of antimony,' R. Abraham translates, horn or strength changed (for this is what the Hebrew haphuch means), namely from weakness and adversity to this fortitude and happiness, far greater than his former and original state.
Tropologically, Olympiodorus says: We are Day, he says, when the morning star of the Lord has risen in our hearts; Cassia, when we become the sweet odor of Christ by the progress of virtues; Horn of Antimony, or of Amalthea, when we are filled with the abundance of spiritual gifts and hasten toward perfection. Symbolically, St. Gregory takes these three daughters of Job to represent the three states of the human race. For we who were created as light, and are now redeemed, he says, are Cassia, that is, fragrant with fortitude, patience, and penance, and we shall one day be the Horn of Antimony, taken up to the trumpet blast and exultation of eternal praise. So he himself says on the cited words of Job ch. XLII.
Canon II
CANON II. The Prophets frequently use metonymy, as do the Poets (for both are seers); for metonymy among all figures and schemes is the most elegant. Thus a city is taken for its citizens, Samaria for the Samaritans, Jerusalem for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, idol for idolaters, temple for priests, school for students, Bacchus for wine, the sin of Jeroboam for the worship of the golden calves, Isaiah for his oracles, Vulcan for fire, heaven for the heavenly beings, earth for the earthborn, Ceres for crops, well-mannered cities for their well-mannered inhabitants, pale death for the pale dead, stars for heaven, household gods for the house, mouth for face, spearpoint for the weapon, fire for a conflagration, citadel for the city, line of battle for the eyes, Mars for war, top for the head, Tellus for the earth, Neptune for the sea, Pluto for the underworld, wave for a river, olive for oil, the toga for peace, reward for merit, sin for punishment, merit for reward. According to this figure Virgil places Troy in Latium when he sings thus:
'Not a Xanthus, not a Simois, not Doric camps
Shall be lacking to you, another Achilles already born in Latium,
He too born of a goddess.'
Where he calls the Latin Achilles Turnus, the Doric camps the Rutulians, Xanthus and Simois the Anio and the Tiber, etc.
Canon III
Canon III. Ablatives, infinitives, and gerunds joined to their verbs increase the meaning of the same and complete the action, and at the same time convey and indicate the manner in which it is usually done and accomplished. Thus 'to see by seeing' means to see clearly and distinctly; because sight takes place by means of light. 'To hear by hearing' means to hear correctly and to perceive; because hearing takes place by receiving with the ears and retaining in the mind the word that is spoken. Likewise 'to speak with the mouth,' or 'to speak by speaking,' means to speak prudently or with premeditation: because truly a word of the mouth is that which is preconceived and prethought in the heart, that is, in the mind.
Canon IV
Canon IV. The eye of the body signifies the eye of the mind, namely the intellect: so too the ear signifies the ear of the mind, namely the will, which hears commands and obeys them. Thus in Matthew XIII, 9, it is said: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," as if to say: He who has a compliant and obedient will, let him comply with and obey these words of Mine. For the repetition of the same word, namely 'ear' and 'hearing,' signifies the perfection and completion of the action, as I said in Canon III.
Canon V
Canon V. Metalepsis is frequent among these Minor Prophets, whereby a word or noun is taken not precisely for what it signifies, but for what follows from it: as in Hosea ch. II, 21: "I will hear
...that we may season the earthly and tasteless minds of men, and impart to them incorruption; so that whoever reads these things, from the knowledge of Your holy oracles, from the gravity and weight of Your promises and threats, may despise the alluring delicacies of the earth, and be effectively kindled with the love of heavenly goods, and with the desire and earnest pursuit of blessed eternity. This one thing I aim at, this one thing I ask: to this end all my reading and writing, to this end all my labor sweats—that Your holy name may be sanctified, and Your holy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; and that Your holy kingdom of grace, glory, and everlasting happiness, where You will be all in all, may come to us. Amen.
Besides the canons which I prefixed to the Major Prophets, receive these as almost proper to the Minor Prophets.
CANON I. The Prophets, in proper names of persons or cities, allude to their meanings, both for elegance and for force and emphasis; therefore our Interpreter often rendered their meanings instead of the Hebrew names themselves. Such, first, is Hosea 1:6, where Hosea, having begotten a daughter from a harlot at God's command, hears from God: "Call her name Without Mercy" (Hebrew: Lo rachuma). This then was the proper name of the daughter. But because lo rachuma means "without mercy," and God presses this meaning here, saying: "For I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel"—hence the Interpreter skillfully translated it "Without Mercy." Likewise, verse 9, when Hosea again begot a son from her, he hears: "Call his name Not My People" (Hebrew: lo ammi). This then was the proper name of the son. But the perceptive Interpreter, seeing that the meaning of the name is alluded to, rightly translated: "Not My People." For it follows: "Because you are not My people, and I will not be yours." So in chapter 10:5: "The inhabitants of Samaria," he says, "worshipped the calves of Bethaven." For Jeroboam set up golden calves to be worshipped in Bethel, which in Hebrew means "House of God" (Genesis 28:17). But because Jeroboam placed idols there, Hosea and the Prophets call Bethel "Bethaven," that is, "house of the idol," as if to say: You have changed Bethel into Bethaven—that is, you have made the house of God into a house of idol and devil.
Second, such is Micah, chapter 1:10: "In the house of dust, sprinkle yourselves with dust." For "dust" the Hebrew has Aphrah, which is a proper name of a city. But because aphrah means "dust" and the Prophet alludes to this, our Interpreter elegantly translated: "In the house of Aphrah," that is, "of dust, sprinkle yourselves with dust." And verse 11: "Pass on, you who dwell in the Beautiful Place" (Hebrew: Saphir), which is the name of a city but means "beautiful." And next: "She who dwells at the Exit has not gone forth" (Hebrew: in Zaanan), which is the name of a city but signifies "exit." And verse 12: "She who dwells in Bitternesses is weakened for good" (Hebrew: in Maroth), which is the name of a city but means "bitternesses," as if to say: She who dwells in Maroth, that is, in bitternesses, is according to her name weakened and made bitter. And verse 14: "He will give the houses of falsehood as a deception to the kings of Israel" (Hebrew: Achzib), which is the name of a city but signifies "falsehood," and he alludes to this saying leachzab, that is, "to lie and deceive" the kings of Israel.
Third, such is Zechariah 3:8: "I will bring My servant the Orient" (Hebrew: Tsemach), which is a name of Christ; but it signifies a sprout being born, and rising from virgin earth, just as Christ was born from a virgin mother without a father.
Fourth, such is Genesis 26:26, where Isaac, from the quarrel of shepherds, called a well "Contention" (Hebrew: Esek). This then was the proper name of the well. And verse 21, he called another "Enmities" for a similar reason (Hebrew: Sitnah). And verse 22, he called a third "Breadth" (Hebrew: Rehoboth), saying: "Now the Lord has made room for us." And verse 33, he called a fourth "Abundance" (Hebrew: Sheba). "Whence the name Beersheba was given to the city," as if to say: Well of fullness and abundance.
Fifth, such is 2 Samuel 8:1: "David took the Bridle of Tribute from the hand of the Philistines" (Hebrew: David took Metheg-ammah), which is the proper name of a place or city, and signifies "Bridle of Tribute."
Sixth, such is 2 Samuel 21:19: "Adeodatus son of the Forest" (Hebrew: Elchanan ben Jaare), which was the proper name of one of David's mighty men: but El means "God," chanan means "gave," ben means "son," jaare means "forest."
Seventh, such is Proverbs 30:1: "The words of the Gatherer, son of the Vomiter" (Hebrew: The words of Agur son of Jake). For Agur was a man and teacher, the son of Jake, who dictated the following words; but Agur means "the gatherer," Jake means "the vomiter."
Eighth, such is 1 Chronicles 4:22: "He who made stand—
—made the sun stand, and men of Falsehood, and Secure, and Burning." In Hebrew it is: Joakim, and men of Chozeba, and Joash, and Saraph—which are proper names of men; hence the Septuagint retained them. For it follows: "Who were princes in Moab." But Joakim means "he who makes stand," Chozeba means "falsehood," Joash means "secure," and Saraph means "burning." Likewise, chapter 2:55: "The Kenites came from the Heat of the father of the house of Rechab." In Hebrew: The Kenites came from Hamath, father of the house of Rechab. So the Septuagint, Pagninus, and the Zurich Bible; but Hamath in Hebrew means "heat."
Ninth, such is the name Peter; for St. Peter in Syria was called by Christ with the Syriac name Cephas, though he was previously called Simon (John 1:42); but because in Syriac Cephas is the same as the Greek and Latin Petrus and Petra, namely the rock upon which Christ built His Church—hence by St. Matthew 16:18, and when he came to Rome, he was thenceforth called Peter by the Romans: just as Saul was called Paul, for Saul is a Hebrew name, Paul a Roman one.
Tenth, such is what is said of Job's three daughters in the last chapter, verse 14: "And he called the name of one Day, and the name of the second Cassia, and the name of the third Horn of Antimony." In Hebrew: And he called her name Jemimah, that is "day," or more precisely "daily" (for Jom means "day"; hence Jemimah means "daily"), and the name of the second Keziah, that is "Cassia," and the name of the third Keren-happuch, that is "Horn of Antimony." These three daughters were properly called by Job Jemimah, Keziah, and Keren-happuch; but the Interpreter rendered the meanings of their names, because Job alluded to them. Hear Nicetas: "He named the first daughter Day," he says, "because from the darkest night of afflictions he had been divinely restored to happiness, as if called back to behold the light of day; he called the second Cassia, because he now enjoyed a certain sweetness of similar fragrance and pleasure of good things; he called the third the Horn of Amalthea (for so the Septuagint translate), because he afterward lived a life overflowing with every kind of good." And Olympiodorus, and following him Vatablus, says: He so named his daughters as a monument of both fortunes, prosperous and adverse—as if he had now returned from darkness to day and light, from the stench of the dung-heap on which he had sat to fragrance, from the filth of pus and ulcers to splendor and elegance. Hence for "Horn of Antimony," Rabbi Abraham translates "horn" or "strength changed" (for this is what the Hebrew haphuch signifies)—namely, from weakness and adversity to this strength and happiness, far greater than the former and original. Tropologically, Olympiodorus says: We are Day when the morning star of the Lord has risen in our hearts; Cassia, when we become a sweet fragrance of Christ through the progress of virtues; Horn of Antimony, or of Amalthea, when we are filled with the abundance of spiritual gifts and hasten toward perfection. Symbolically, St. Gregory takes these three daughters of Job as the three states of the human race—
—of humanity. For we who were created as light, and now redeemed, he says, are Cassia, that is, fragrant with fortitude, patience, and penance; and we shall one day be taken up as the Horn of Antimony into the trumpet-blast and exultation of eternal praise. So he says on the cited words of Job, chapter 42.
CANON II. The Prophets frequently use metonymy, just as Poets do (for both are seers); indeed metonymy is the most elegant of all figures and schemes. Thus a city is taken for its citizens, Samaria for the Samaritans, Jerusalem for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, idol for idolaters, temple for priests, school for students, Bacchus for wine, sin for the worship of Jeroboam's golden calves, Isaiah for his oracles, Vulcan for fire, heaven for the heavenly beings, earth for those born of earth, Ceres for grain, well-moraled cities for well-moraled inhabitants, pale death for the pale dead, stars for heaven, household gods for home, mouth for face, spear-point for weapon, fire for conflagration, citadel for city, edge for eyes, Mars for war, summit for head, Tellus for earth, Neptune for sea, Pluto for the underworld, wave for river, olive for oil, toga for peace, reward for merit, sin for punishment, merit for reward. According to this scheme Virgil maps Troy onto Latium, singing thus:
"Not Xanthus, not Simois, not Doric camps
Shall you lack; another Achilles is already born in Latium,
He too born of a goddess."
Where he calls Turnus the Latin Achilles, the Rutulians the Doric camps, and the Anio and Tiber are the Xanthus and Simois, etc.
Canon III. Ablatives, infinitives, and gerunds joined to their verbs increase their meaning, complete the action, and at the same time convey and indicate the manner in which things are usually done and accomplished. Thus "seeing to see" means to see clearly and distinctly, because seeing takes place in full light. "Hearing to hear" means to hear rightly and perceive, because hearing takes place by receiving with the ears and retaining in the mind the word that is spoken. Thus "to speak with the mouth," or "speaking to speak," means to speak prudently or with premeditation, because truly the word of the mouth is that which is preconceived and prethought in the heart, that is, in the mind.
Canon IV. The eye of the body signifies the eye of the mind, namely the intellect; and likewise the ear signifies the ear of the mind, namely the will, which hears commands and obeys them. Thus Matthew 13:9 says: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," as if to say: He who has a compliant and obedient will, let him comply with and obey these words of Mine. For the doubling of the same word—namely "ear" and "hearing"—signifies the perfection and completion of the action, as I said in Canon III.
Canon V. Metalepsis is frequent among these Minor Prophets, whereby a word or noun is taken not precisely for what it signifies, but for what follows from it: as in Hosea 2:21: "I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth"—that is, I will respond to the heavens silently asking for rain in their dryness, with which to irrigate the earth subject to them, namely by filling them with clouds; and in turn the heavens will respond to the thirsty earth asking for rain, by distilling it upon her. For from the response one understands the request: for the response normally follows the request, and no one responds unless asked. "And the earth shall hear the wheat and wine and oil; and these shall hear Jezreel"—as if to say: Jezreel, that is, the seed and people of God, namely the Israelites, ask for wheat, wine, and oil, and say to them as it were: Come, give us an abundance of yourselves, feed and nourish us. These in turn say to the earth: Come, be fruitful, bring us forth, so that we may satisfy Jezreel. The earth in turn calls upon the heavens: Come, give me rain, that I may sprout wheat, wine, and oil. The heavens finally call upon God: Come, Lord, fill me with cloud, dew, and rain, that I may distill them upon the earth and make it fruitful. God hears the heavens by giving them clouds and rain; the heavens hear the earth by distilling them upon it; the earth then hears the wheat, wine, and oil by sprouting and producing them; and these finally hear Jezreel, by sprouting and growing abundantly, and giving themselves to Jezreel for harvest and food. And so the prayers of all are satisfied by God, who fills every creature with blessing—but in the due order and gradation just described.
Canon VI
CANON VI. The Minor Prophets harmonize with the Major Prophets with a certain wonderful harmony, because they foretell nearly the same things as the Major Prophets—namely, the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, the coming of the Messiah, the sacraments of the Church, etc. For God willed to give so many witnesses to His oracle that no one could doubt it, since all foretell the same things, and all agree, disagreeing in nothing. For this is the invincible argument of truth and true prophecy, which St. Augustine constantly uses Against the Manicheans, and Tertullian Against Marcion, to prove the authority of both the New and Old Testaments, and that God was the author of both—from the fact that in all things one agrees and harmonizes with the other in a beautiful and discordant concord, like diverse and discordant voices in a musical harmony. For just as a shadow agrees with and exactly corresponds to its body, so does the Old Testament to the New. Hence the Minor Prophets are as it were the equals of the Major ones: for what the latter say more expansively and fluently, the former say more concisely and vigorously.
Thus Micah is the equal and rival of Isaiah; indeed, he sometimes says the very same thing word for word, as when in chapter 4:1 he says: "And in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established on the top of the mountains," and so on to verse 4. Isaiah has almost the same words in chapter 2. Again, what Micah says about the camp of Sennacherib in chapter 5:1: "Now you shall be laid waste, daughter of a robber; they have laid siege against us"—this very thing Isaiah says about the same in chapter 33:1: "Woe to you who plunder, shall you not also be plundered? And you who despise, shall you not also be despised?" etc. Likewise what Hosea says in chapter 10:8: "And they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall upon us"—this Isaiah says in chapter 2:19: "And they shall enter the caves of the rocks and the chasms of the earth, from before the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty, when He shall arise to strike the earth." So the prophecy of Obadiah against the Edomites is the same as the prophecy of Jeremiah against the same in chapter 30:14ff., as is clear to anyone comparing the two. Likewise what Nahum says in chapter 1:15: "Behold upon the mountains the feet of one bringing good news and announcing peace"—Isaiah has the very same words in chapter 52:7. Likewise what Zechariah says in chapter 9:9: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold your king comes to you, just and a savior"—Isaiah recounts in the same words in chapter 62:11. There are very many similar instances.
Canon VII
CANON VII. Among the Prophets, especially the Minor ones, sarcasm is frequent—that is, hostile mockery, or a joke with bitterness: such as the remark of Pyrrhus to Priam about to be slain, in Virgil, Aeneid 2:
"You shall carry back this news, then, and go as messenger
To Peleus' son my father: remember to tell him
Of my sad deeds, and how Neoptolemus degenerates."
Such is Proverbs 1:25: "You have despised all my counsel, etc. I too will laugh at your destruction, and will mock when what you feared has come upon you." So Isaiah mocks the king of Babylon slain by Cyrus, chapter 14:12: "How have you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, you who rose in the morning?" And Ezekiel mocks the king of Tyre, chapter 28:12: "You were the seal of resemblance, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty; you were in the delights of the paradise of God, etc., until iniquity was found in you: and I cast you out from the mountain of God, and destroyed you, O Cherub." Such is that voice of the nations about Jerusalem: "Let her be stoned, and let our eye gaze upon Zion" (Micah 4:11).
Canon VIII
CANON VIII. Also frequent is mycterism, that is, scoffing or mockery with the curling of the nose, and Sardonic laughter, about which Cicero writes in book 7, letter 26 to Fabius Gallus: "You seem to me," he says, "to fear that if we get that man, we shall laugh a Sardonic laugh"—meaning that if Caesar gained power, many would be forced to smile at and applaud things that greatly displeased them. For mykter in Greek means "nose," which is the sign of anger and mockery. Hence Pliny, book 11, chapter 37: "And the nose is more prominent in humans alone, whom new customs have devoted to sly mockery." ... To curl the nose means to mock silently and craftily. Hence Horace, book 1, Satires 6:
"You curl your hooked nose."
And Persius, Satire 1, on Horace:
"Slyly curling his nose to mock the people."
The same, Satire 5:
"Learn, but let anger fall from your nose, and wrinkled sneering."
And Martial, book 1, Epigram 32:
"And the (witty) boys have a rhinoceros nose."
Hence one who knows how to mock others learnedly is called "nosy." Whence Martial, book 13, Epigram 2:
"Be as nosy as you like; be, in short, a nose."
So Cicero mocks Verres by comparing him to a verres, that is, a boar, in Action 3: "People, he says, said it was no wonder that Verrine justice was so bad." For Verres signifies both a man and a pig; and jus can mean both "justice" and "gravy." And in Action 6: "The Sicilians, he says, cursed the Priest for having left behind such a worthless boar." For Gaius Sacerdos, departing from the praetorship of Sicily, had left Verres as his successor; and the sacerdos, that is, the sacrificer, left a verres, that is, a pig, which he did not slaughter—being a foul victim and displeasing to the gods.
Such is Micah 6:3: "O My people, what have I done to you? Or how have I been troublesome to you? Answer Me. Because I brought you out of the land of Egypt, and freed you from the house of bondage, and sent before your face Moses and Aaron and Miriam?" As if to say: What evil have I done to you, O Israel! Do you consider the supreme benefits I have bestowed on you as injuries, and reproach Me with them? I freed you from the Egyptian prison, I led you through Moses all the way to Canaan—is this what you charge Me with? You have nothing else to charge Me with. Similar is Hosea 7:16: "They have returned to be without a yoke; they have become like a treacherous bow: their princes shall fall by the sword from the fury of their tongue. Such is their mockery in the land of Egypt." And Amos 2:13: "Behold, I will creak beneath you as a cart creaks that is loaded with hay." And chapter 4:12: "Therefore I will do this to you, Israel; and after I have done this to you, prepare to meet your God"—as if to say: Meet Him if you can, God who attacks you; engage Him hand to hand; repel force with force, if you are able. And Isaiah 57:13: "When you cry out, let your assemblies deliver you"—as if to say: You have abandoned Me, O Zion! Go then to your gods; in tribulation call upon them; let them deliver you.
Canon IX
CANON IX. The Prophets are accustomed, after oracles of destruction and slaughter, to add a funeral song or epitaph, either for greater emotional effect or to soften the harshness of the oracle. Thus Micah, chapter 2:4, composes this funeral song for Samaria about to be destroyed: "On that day a parable shall be taken up over you, and a song shall be sung with sweet-sounding voices, saying: We have been utterly laid waste; the portion of my people has been changed. How shall it depart from me, when he who divides our territories shall return?" Isaiah composes a similar one for Babylon and Belshazzar, chapter 14:4. And Ezekiel for Tyre, chapter 26:17: "How you have perished," he says, "you who dwell in the sea, O renowned city!" etc. And for Egypt, chapter 32:19. And Jeremiah for Jerusalem in the Lamentations. Furthermore, the first and common epitaph of the Patriarchs in the world is found in Genesis 5:3: "Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years, and he died. Seth lived nine hundred and twelve years, and he died—
—died," etc. So David sang this lamentation for Saul and Jonathan when they were slain, 2 Samuel 1:19: "The illustrious of Israel have been slain upon your mountains: how have the mighty fallen! O mountains of Gilboa, let neither dew nor rain come upon you, etc., for there the shield of the mighty was cast away. The arrow of Jonathan never turned back, and the sword of Saul did not return empty. Saul and Jonathan, lovely and beautiful in their life, were not divided even in death: swifter than eagles, stronger than lions." For it was customary to celebrate the virtues and victories of the dead in such songs. Hence Virgil, in Eclogue 5, mourning the death of Daphnis—that is, of Caesar, or Quintilius Varus—sings this epitaph, indeed apotheosis:
"Make a tomb, and add this verse upon the tomb:
'I, Daphnis in the woods, known hence even to the stars.'"
And shortly before:
"Even the Carthaginian lions, Daphnis, groaned at your death,
And wild mountains and forests proclaim it.
Daphnis taught men to yoke Armenian tigers to the chariot
(because Caesar brought the sacred rites of Father Liber from Armenia to Rome), Daphnis to lead the revels of Bacchus,
And to interweave the pliant spears with soft leaves," etc.
Epitaphs were indeed invented for this twofold purpose. The first is that they may be mirrors of death for the living, and may remind them that this life is a comedy, in which each person plays the role either of a peasant, or a king, or a Pontiff, until the comic or tragic action is finished. The second is that they may serve as examples and incentives of virtue. So Virgil, Aeneid 11:
"Go, he says, honor with final rites these noble souls,
Who purchased this fatherland for us with their blood."
Augustus Caesar himself represented this very thing vividly in his own death, as Suetonius reports in his Life. For to the bystanders he said: "Have I played my part well enough, friends?" When they answered: "Well"—"Then farewell," he said, "and applaud"—and drawing back the curtain, he breathed his last, signifying that this life is a play, and that in it he had played the role of Emperor; that he was now laying it down in death, and returning to the earth from which he was formed; but leaving to posterity the image of a fortunate emperor, so that rightly each of his successors might wish to hear acclaimed of themselves: "More fortunate than Augustus, better than Trajan." Third, these epitaphs are ornaments of heroic deeds, as well as memorials of the deceased, so that they may live in the memory of their dear ones and posterity, and thus achieve immortality of name; for man desires and pursues this by the instinct of nature—which is itself a sign of the immortality and eternity of the soul, and of the resurrection. For unless the soul were itself eternal, it would not pursue an eternal memory of itself; for it desires to live forever in the minds of men precisely because it forever lives and feels in itself, and rejoices to live in the minds of others. Moreover, since nature has sown this desire for eternity in human souls, it follows that they are themselves eternal. For nature does nothing in vain, nor does it implant frustrated desires, or allow desires it has implanted to be frustrated. Finally, St. Augustine assigns a fourth reason—namely, that prayers may be offered for the faithful departed. Hear him, in the book On Care for the Dead, chapter 4: "The reason that those distinguished tombs of the dead are called 'Memorials' or 'monuments,'" he says, "is none other than that they recall to memory those who have been taken from the eyes of the living by death, lest they also be taken from their hearts by forgetfulness, and by reminding, they cause them to be thought of." And shortly after: "When therefore the mind recalls where the body of a most dear one is buried, and the place venerable by the name of a martyr presents itself, the affection of the one remembering and praying commends the beloved soul to that same martyr. And when this is offered by the most dear faithful for the departed, there is no doubt that it benefits those who, while they lived in the body, merited that such things would profit them after this life." He goes on to show that these monuments are not only consolations for the living, but also helps for the dead. For the same reasons, we daily read in the Martyrology the struggles and triumphs of the saints who died on that day.
Canon X
CANON X. The Minor Prophets, because they are concise and passionate, abound in emotions, and they alternate and mix them—now threatening sinners with the wrath of God, now cajoling, now terrifying, now consoling, now being angry, now pitying, now thundering, now groaning, now laughing, now weeping—just as we see people caught up in anger, sorrow, joy, or despair alternate these emotions. For they speak whatever the various and mutually conflicting passions—now anger, now hope, now fear, now sorrow, alternately arising—suggest to them. For this reason they abound in transpositions, abrupt silences, emphases, and other figures of pathos, which arouse either indignation or compassion. Hence also the following sentences are sometimes not connected to what immediately precedes, but look back to what came much earlier: as in Micah 7:5, "Do not trust a friend" is not connected with what preceded—"Now shall be their desolation"—but with what was said earlier, verse 2: "The godly has perished from the earth, etc., each man hunts his brother to the death."
Canon XI
CANON XI. All the Prophets have Christ as their end and goal, and they all aim entirely at Him. Therefore they often fly to Him; and what is worthy of note, all of them, except Jonah and Nahum, expressly end with Christ, and conclude their oracles in Him, as if assigning to Him the crowning achievement of their work.
For the first, Hosea, in the last chapter, verse 6, thus portrays Christ: "I will be as the dew; Israel shall sprout like the lily, and his root shall burst forth like Lebanon." The second, Joel, 3:18, concludes thus: "And it shall be in that day (of the Gospel): the mountains shall drip with sweetness, and the hills shall flow with milk, and through all the streams of Judah shall go waters, etc. And the Lord shall dwell in Zion." The third, Amos, 9:11: "In that day," he says, "I will raise up the tabernacle of David (that is, the kingdom and Church of Christ) that has fallen, and I will rebuild the breaches of its walls, etc., that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations upon whom My name has been invoked." The fourth, Obadiah, ends thus: "And saviors shall ascend Mount Zion to judge Mount Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord's." The fifth, Micah, ends thus: "Who is a God like You, who takes away iniquity and passes over sin? etc. He will return and have mercy on us; He will put away our iniquities and cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will give truth to Jacob, mercy to Abraham, which You swore to our fathers from the days of old." For Christ is the truth and mercy once promised to Abraham and the Patriarchs. The sixth, Habakkuk, rests in Christ with clear exultation: "But I will rejoice in the Lord, and exult in God my Jesus" (3:18). The seventh, Zephaniah, last chapter, verse 9: "Then," he says, "I will restore to the peoples a chosen language, that all may call upon the name of the Lord, and serve Him with one shoulder. Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, thence My suppliants, the children of My dispersed ones, shall bring Me an offering." And verse 14: "Praise, O daughter of Zion; shout for joy, O Israel; rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem," etc. The eighth, Haggai, concludes thus: "I will move heaven and earth together. On that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel (in Christ who is to be born from you), son of Shealtiel, My servant, says the Lord; and I will make you as a signet ring, for I have chosen you." For Zerubbabel here represents Christ, as a father does a son. The ninth, Zechariah, last chapter, verse 7: "And there shall be," he says, "one day which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, and at evening time there shall be light. And it shall be on that day: living waters shall go forth from Jerusalem. And the Lord shall be king over all the earth; on that day the Lord shall be one, and His name shall be one." The tenth, Malachi, ends with Elijah, who will precede Christ's second coming: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. And he shall turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers." The eleventh, Daniel, in like manner seals his oracles in chapter 12:2 with the resurrection and judgment of Christ: "Many," he says, "of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake: some to eternal life, and others to reproach, that they may see forever. But those who have been learned shall shine like the splendor of the firmament; and those who instruct many to justice, like stars for perpetual eternities." The twelfth, Isaiah, concludes his book with a similar theme: "I will take from them," he says, "for priests and Levites, says the Lord; for just as the new heavens and the new earth which I make to stand before Me, says the Lord, so shall your seed and your name stand. And it shall be month after month and sabbath after sabbath," etc. The thirteenth, Ezekiel, having described the new Jerusalem, that is, the Church—
—of Christ, ends with it, saying: "And the name of the city from that day shall be 'The Lord is there.'" The fourteenth, Jeremiah, closes his Lamentations thus, chapter 4:20: "The breath of our mouth, Christ the Lord, was captured in our sins; to whom we said: In Your shadow we shall live among the nations." Thus the Prophets, Apostles, and all the Saints begin every work in Christ, finish and end in Christ, and say to Him as the center of their heart, with St. Gregory Nazianzen: "From You the beginning; in You may it end." Just as St. Paul begins absolutely all his epistles with Jesus Christ, and ends nearly all in the same. You see here how Christ is the end of the Law and the Prophets, as well as of the Apostles and Saints. For just as one who loves something intensely thinks of it constantly, speaks of it, and dreams of it, so too the Prophets, as if wounded by a wound of divine love, with which they burned for the future Messiah, bent all their thoughts, words, and deeds toward Him—to seek Him, to proclaim Him, and finally to represent the life, character, and mysteries of the One in whom alone the salvation and redemption of the world was established, wherever they conveniently could.
Canon XII
Canon XII. The words of Sacred Scripture and the Prophets sometimes have diverse, even contrary senses, and this because they are spoken by diverse persons—indeed, by those who hold contrary views—or because they regard diverse, even contrary causes, effects, or ends. A striking example is John 11:50, where Caiaphas says of Christ: "It is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish." By these words Caiaphas intended to signify that it was expedient for the Jews to put Christ to death, lest the Romans invade Judea, which was venerating Christ as the Messiah, the King of the Jews opposed to Caesar—a counsel that was indeed political, wicked, and diabolical. But the Holy Spirit, who moved the tongue of Caiaphas, not his heart, as St. Chrysostom says, intended by these words to signify something far different—namely, that it was expedient for Christ to die for the salvation of the people, and by His death to redeem the Jews and all nations; which Caiaphas did not understand. Hence St. John adds: "This he did not say of himself, but being High Priest (and therefore head of the ancient Church) that year, he prophesied (materially, not formally) that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but to gather into one the children of God who were scattered."
Likewise, 2 Kings 8:10, when Hazael consulted Elisha, asking whether Benhadad, king of Syria, would recover from his illness or not, he hears from him: "Go, say to him: You shall recover; but the Lord has shown me that he shall surely die." If he will recover, how will he surely die? Does the Prophet command Hazael to lie to his king? Far from it. Rather, the Prophet signifies here two contrary things, both of which were true. The first, that the king's illness was not lethal; hence he says: "You shall recover," namely, as far as the illness is concerned—as if to say: Your illness is not fatal; you will not die from your illness—and this was true. The second, that he would nevertheless "surely die"—not by natural death, but by violent death: for Hazael, coveting and seizing the kingdom, verse 13: "took a blanket, soaked it in water, and spread it over his face," and so suffocated him under the pretext of refreshing him. "And when he was dead, Hazael reigned in his place."
A similar antiphrasis occurs in 1 Kings 22:15, where Micaiah the Prophet, consulted by Ahab king of Israel as to whether the attack on the city of Ramoth would be successful for him or not, responds: "Go up, and prosper, and the Lord will deliver it into the king's hands"—as if to say: Since you want to go up, go up, and I wish that this expedition may prosper and the city be delivered to you; but through prophecy I know the contrary will happen—for I know that there you shall be killed, as shortly afterward he was. It is therefore irony, as Abulensis and Vatablus note there.
To this point is relevant what Ambrose Catharinus writes in the Life of St. Catherine of Siena, book 2, chapters 28 and 29—that two senses of Christ's prayer in the garden were revealed to her by God: "My Father, if it is possible, let this chalice pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:39). Senses, I say, new and diverse, even seemingly contrary to the common exposition. The first is, as if to say: My Father, immediately give Me the chalice of the Passion to drink, for I most avidly thirst for it; grant that I may immediately suffer and die; for My ardor for suffering admits of no delays, not even of an hour or a single instant. Therefore make it so that this chalice may immediately pass through Me, and then pass from Me—so that, through My Passion, with death and sin abolished, I may immediately redeem the human race and thus return to You, to enjoy You, My Father. For Christ desired this according to the spirit: He desired to hasten and complete the work of our redemption, for which He had been sent by the Father. Hence He Himself says: "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am constrained until it is accomplished" (Luke 12:50). And shortly before His Passion: "With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you." He wished to give an example to St. Ignatius, Laurence, Vincent, and other generous martyrs of desiring crosses and pursuing martyrdoms. According to the flesh, however, He desired the contrary—namely, "let it pass," that is, let the chalice of the Passion be taken from Me. But these two senses are compatible with each other: for Christ could pray one thing according to the flesh, and another according to the spirit. If He could, it is probable that He did. For if the Apostle says, 1 Corinthians 14: "I will pray with the spirit, I will pray also with the mind"—much more did Christ, praying in the flesh, also pray in the spirit. But the desire of the spirit was contrary to the desire of the flesh: the flesh therefore, by these words, desired that the Passion be transferred from Him; the spirit desired that it be hastened and swiftly pass through. The latter sense of that prayer was revealed to St. Catherine as follows: She saw, she says, Christ the Lord, in the manner—
—of one who knows all things, that very many, namely the reprobate, would be ungrateful for His Passion, would remain in their sins, and would be damned—this was His supreme sorrow, and He calls this His chalice, as if to say: Let this chalice pass from Me—that is, remove from Me this sorrow, this torment, namely this number of the damned; make it so that all may so share in My Passion that they may be saved. And if Christ had prayed this absolutely and efficaciously, He would certainly have obtained it, because the Father denies nothing to the Son; but Christ preferred out of reverence to conform Himself to the Father's will and justice, and therefore added: "Yet not as I will, but as You will." So St. Catherine. Our author Luis de la Puente, in his Meditation on the Prayer of Christ in the Garden, cites and follows these senses of St. Catherine of Siena, among others.
But these things must be received soberly, and not imitated, unless it is established by divine revelation or from another source that these senses were intended by the Holy Spirit. In this matter many preachers err, who fabricate from their own brains senses of Sacred Scripture often contrary to the very letter and mind of the Holy Spirit—against whom I argued above, Question III.
In a similar way, the voice of flesh most afflicted is that of Job, cursing his day, chapter 3:2: "Let the day perish on which I was born." But the voice of the spirit is: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away. As it pleased the Lord, so it has been done. Blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21). Likewise, the voice of the flesh is that of Jeremiah, chapter 20:14: "Cursed be the day on which I was born, etc. Why did I come forth from the womb, to see labor and sorrow, and that my days might be consumed in confusion?" But the voice of the spirit: "Sing to the Lord, praise God, for He has delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of the wicked" (verse 13). Thus often our flesh prays one thing, while the Holy Spirit through the same prayer asks for and obtains another. For as the Apostle says, Romans 8:26: "We do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with unutterable groans. And He who searches hearts knows what the Spirit desires, because He intercedes for the saints according to God." In the same way, in Scripture one must carefully distinguish the statements of the faithful and pious from the statements and sayings of the unfaithful and impious—as in Ecclesiastes 3:19: "The death of man and of beasts is one, and the condition of both is equal, etc., and man has nothing more than the beast." Which words St. Gregory (Dialogues 4.4), Olympiodorus, and other interpreters consider to be said by Solomon not in his own person, but in the person of the Epicureans who deny the immortality of the soul. Likewise in the book of Job, the words of Job must be carefully distinguished from the words of Eliphaz and his other friends: for the former are approved by God, while the latter are disapproved (Job, last chapter, verse 7). In a similar way in the Gospel of St. John, the words of Jews who believed in Christ must be distinguished from the words of unbelievers. For in the same crowd, some believed in Christ, others did not. Hence con-
—they hold and say contrary things: for the former approve, while the latter disapprove of Christ's words. Therefore one must consider what is to be attributed to each. By this canon we resolve many apparent contradictions, and we shall reconcile many passages that seem contrary.
Canon XIII
CANON XIII. The Hebrew word ki, that is "because" or "since," often does not signify a cause, nor is it a rational particle, but rather an exceptive, adversative, or introductory particle, or merely an enclitic added for the sake of ornament. Hence first, ki (that is, "since") is used for "although," as in Psalm 77:20: "Since"—that is, "although"—"He struck the rock and waters flowed, etc., can He also give bread, or prepare a table in the desert?" And Habakkuk 2:18: "What profit is the graven image, because"—that is, "although"—"its maker carved it?"
Second, ki (that is, "since") serves as a mark of asseveration, and is taken as "surely," "certainly," "indeed"—as in Psalm 17:30: "Since," that is, "indeed, in You I shall be delivered from temptation." Psalm 54:13: "Since," that is, "surely, if my enemy had cursed me, I would certainly have endured it."
Third, ki is often a marker of the beginning of a discourse and opens a sentence, as can be seen in the Psalms. So in Luke 1:61, it says: "And they said to him: Because [i.e., that] there is no one in your family who is called by this name." Hosea 11:1: "Because Israel was a child, and I loved him."
Fourth, ki (that is, "because") is used for "that," as in Luke 2:13: "As it is written in the law of the Lord, because," that is "that," "every male opening the womb shall be called holy to the Lord."
Fifth, ki (that is, "because") is taken as "furthermore," "in addition," "moreover"—as in Zephaniah 3:9: "Because," that is, "moreover, then I will restore to the peoples a chosen language."
Sixth, ki is used for the relative asher, that is, "who/which"—as in Genesis 4:25: "God has given me another seed in place of Abel, whom" (Hebrew ki, that is, "because") "Cain killed." Exodus 13:17: "God did not lead them through the way of the land of the Philistines, which" (Hebrew ki, that is, "because") "was near."
Seventh, ki (that is, "because") is adversative, and is taken as "but"—as in 2 Samuel 16:18: "By no means; because," that is, "but I will belong to him whom the Lord has chosen."
Eighth, ki is a mark of time, signifying "when" or "cum"—as in Genesis 4:12: "When" (Hebrew ki) "you have tilled it, it will not give you its fruits."
Ninth, ki is exceptive, meaning the same as "unless" or "except." 1 Samuel 30:17: "And none of them escaped except" (Hebrew ki) "four hundred men." It is an apocope, for ki is used in place of ki im, that is, "unless/except."
Tenth, ki, when doubled, is disjunctive, signifying "or"—as in 1 Kings 18:27: "Either" (Hebrew ki) "he is at an inn, or on a journey, or perhaps sleeping"—your god Baal.
Eleventh, it is negative, signifying "not" or "lest"—as in Isaiah 30:21: "This is the way, walk in it, and do not" (Hebrew ki) "turn aside, neither to the right nor to the left."
Canon XIV
Canon XIV. After the schism of Jeroboam and the ten tribes from the two tribes and their king Rehoboam, down to the Babylonian captivity, these two names—Israel and Judah—are distinguished. For Israel signifies the ten tribes, Judah the two. But after the Babylonian captivity, Israel and Judah are taken as the same, namely for the two tribes—both because in these alone the family and name of Israel (that is, of the patriarch Jacob) persisted (for the other tribes were dispersed throughout the whole world), and because many faithful from the ten tribes joined themselves to Judah. The tribe of Judah therefore embraced the other ten that had been called Israel. So St. Cyril, Ribera, and Arias on Zechariah 12:1. Thus Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, sings: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel," that is, of the Jews. So Christ says He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. So the Evangelists often name Israel, and understand no other people than the Jewish people, as the only ones remaining from the stock of Israel, and the heir of the promises made by God to Abraham and to Israel, that is, to Jacob.
Canon XV
Canon XV. The active verbs of the Hebrews often signify not the action and effect, but the power, force, and capacity for acting. Thus Christ, in John 1, is called "the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world; the light that shines in the darkness and enlightens every man coming into this world"—namely, as far as lies in Him. That is to say: Christ has in Himself the power to take away sins, to dispel darkness, and to enlighten every person—unless that person closes his eyes and refuses to see this light, as many unbelievers and impious people have done and continue to do. In the same way we say: This fire burns; this water moistens—meaning it has the power to burn, to moisten, etc., even though it often burns nothing and moistens nothing. So understand Mark, last chapter: "He who believes and is baptized shall be saved"—namely, as far as the nature and power of faith and baptism are concerned; provided that the one who has believed follows the laws and precepts of faith and the spirit received in baptism, and carries them out in keeping Christ's commandments. And John 6:55: "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life"—namely, as far as the power of the Eucharist is concerned; to which, however, a sinner can place an obstacle with his sins and nullify it. Thus often when Scripture describes the works of God, it signifies rather what He is able to do than what He actually does—as: "He looks upon the earth and makes it tremble; He touches the mountains and they smoke" (Psalm 103:32); "He commands the sun and it does not rise, and He seals up the stars as if under a seal" (Job 9:7). And more clearly, verse 6: "He moves the earth from its place, and its pillars are shaken"—that is, He can shake and move them. So Zechariah 12:12 says that all the families of the Jews, seeing Christ fixed to the cross, shall mourn—that is, they justly could mourn and should mourn—
—and ought to have mourned. For whom would God fixed to the cross not move to lamentation? Even though in fact many unbelievers did not mourn Him but mocked Him. And Amos 8:10: "I will turn," He says, "all your festivals into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation, and I will bring sackcloth upon every back, and baldness upon every head." It is not necessary that all be clothed in sackcloth or every head be shaved; but the meaning is, as if to say: So great will be the disaster that all could rightly put on sackcloth and shave their heads. And Isaiah 4:1: "Seven women shall take hold of one man in that day." We nowhere read that this actually happened; but the meaning is, as if to say: So great will be the slaughter of men that scarcely one husband will be found for seven women, and consequently seven women could or would have to compete for one husband, if they wished to marry according to the custom of their nation.
Canon XVI
Canon XVI. The Prophets, especially Zechariah, use apologues (fables), both for the obscurity that is proper to prophecy, and for elegance, and to rouse the attention of torpid hearers—indeed, of those who reject and oppose God's oracles—just as Demosthenes aroused the drowsiness and attention of the judges by telling the fable of a muleteer contending over the shadow of a donkey in the blazing sun with the donkey's hirer. For such is the curiosity of people that they prick up their ears for fables and novelties, but let them droop at serious and weighty matters, like the donkeys of an unkind fate.
A notable apologue is that of Jotham son of Gideon, spoken against the Shechemites who had made Abimelech, a bastard and tyrant, their king (Judges 9:8): "The trees went out," he says, "to anoint a king over themselves, and they said to the olive tree: Reign over us. It answered: Can I abandon my richness, which both gods and men use, and go to be promoted among the trees? And the trees said to the fig tree: Come, and take the kingdom over us. It answered them: Can I abandon my sweetness and my most delicious fruits, and go to be promoted among the other trees? And the trees said to the vine: Come, and reign over us. It answered them: Can I abandon my wine, which gladdens God and men, and be promoted among the other trees? And all the trees said to the bramble: Come, and reign over us. It answered them: If you truly make me king over you, come and rest under my shade; but if you will not, let fire come forth from the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon." The meaning is, as if to say: You, O Shechemites, have chosen as your king Abimelech the parricide and tyrant—a bramble, as it were—who will therefore prick and torment you. By the just judgment of God, therefore, it will come about that strife and war between you and Abimelech is stirred up, by which you destroy him and he in turn destroys you, so that both sides perish. For a tyrant hurls fire against his own people, even the noblest, if—as commonly happens—they raise a dispute against him on account of his tyranny; yet he himself is likewise consumed by that fire and perishes, as has been seen in most tyrants. Tru-
—ly Jotham was a prophet, for the Shechemites and Abimelech destroyed each other. A similar apologue is that of Joash king of Israel to Amaziah king of Judah, who was provoking him to war: "The thistle of Lebanon," he said, "sent to the cedar that is in Lebanon, saying: Give your daughter as wife to my son. And the beasts of the forest that are in Lebanon passed by and trampled the thistle." He explains the apologue saying: "You have struck and prevailed over Edom, and your heart has lifted you up: be content with your glory and stay in your house. Why do you provoke evil, that you may fall, and Judah with you?" (2 Kings 14:9). Similar is Zechariah 11:2: "Wail, O fir tree, for the cedar has fallen"—as if to say: Wail, O common people, for the great ones have fallen. And verse 1: "Open your gates, O Lebanon, and let fire devour your cedars"—that is, open your gates, O Jerusalem, to Titus and the Romans, who will burn your houses of cedar. The same prophet, in all of chapter 5, describes in an elegant apologue the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, through a woman placed in an amphora and carried by stork's wings to Shinar, that is, to Babylon. There are very many similar ones in Zechariah and the other Prophets, which I shall review shortly in order among the Hieroglyphics or enigmas.
Canon XVII
CANON XVII. The Prophets occasionally allude to the fables of the pagans and poets, both because these fables were well-known and celebrated among the Gentiles, and because sometimes they are not so much fables as enigmas or mythologies, composed for moral instruction; such are the fables of Aesop, which contain great wisdom and prudence, for they teach ethics through apt fictional stories and fables. Hence the so-called "political" (i.e., fabulous) theology was famous among the ancients (and mythologists were regarded as philosophers, indeed as theologians), about which Fulgentius wrote a book, and which St. Augustine mentions in City of God 6.5, and Eusebius in Preparation for the Gospel 3.2.
Thus Malachi 4:2, saying: "The sun of justice shall rise for you who fear My name, and healing in his wings," alludes to the fable of the phoenix; because the phoenix is a symbol and enigma of the sun, which is clothed with its rays as with wings, and by them imparts life and health to all living beings. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: Christ shall rise, who, risen from death like a phoenix—that is, like a healing sun—touching with the rays of His grace and glory, as with wings, the righteous dead and buried, will raise them from death to life, heal, bless, and glorify them. Likewise Judith 16:8 says: "Nor did the sons of the Titans strike him" (Holofernes). Here there is an allusion to the fable of the Titans, whom the poets fable were giants, sons of heaven and earth, and waged war with Jupiter, and were hurled by his thunderbolt into Tartarus. About them Virgil writes in Aeneid 6:
"Here the ancient race of Earth, the Titan brood,
Struck down by thunderbolt, are rolled in the lowest depths."
Not that Sacred Scripture approves the fables of the poets, but that it may speak in the manner of the common people and in their language—
—may signify a true thing; because "we cannot properly understand what is said unless through those words which we have learned by usage and absorbed by error," says St. Jerome on Amos 5:8, and St. Gregory, Moralia 9.6—especially when the fables have their origin in Sacred Scripture, as Pererius and other learned men think the fable of the Titans originated from the history and deeds of the giants, Genesis 6:4 and 11:4. The sons of Titan, therefore, by catachresis are called the most warlike and strongest giants, whom the poets call and consider to have been Titans. Hence Scripture, explaining further, adds in Judith 16:8: "Nor did the lofty giants oppose him, but Judith, daughter of Merari, undid him by the beauty of her face." So St. Jerome, on Galatians 3, near the beginning. Likewise Isaiah 34:14 alludes to the fables of the Onocentaurs and Lamiae, as I noted there.
Likewise Job 42:14, the daughter of Job, who in Hebrew and by our Interpreter is called "Horn of Antimony," is called by the Septuagint "Horn of Amalthea," whom the poets imagine to be the goat that nursed Jupiter. So in Job 21:33, it says: "He was sweet to the gravels of Cocytus." Gravel is sandy, stony ground near a river. Cocytus is a river in Arcadia, flowing from the Stygian marsh, which the poets invented as the river of the underworld, because many corpses were thrown into that marsh to be quickly consumed. For the tombs of the ancients were situated near rivers, so that corpses might be consumed by the river and the air thereby purified. The meaning therefore is, as if to say: The impious man agrees well with the tomb; for he feels nothing bad there, but rests in it sweetly and pleasantly, just as the Poets imagine the dead to rest in Cocytus. Mystically, St. Gregory says: The impious man is sweet to Cocytus, that is, to the devil and to hell, which rejoices and feeds on the death and punishments of the wicked.
Job therefore alludes to the well-known fable of Cocytus: for Cocytus is named from the Greek kokyen, that is, "to lament," because mourning befits the dead. Hence they imagine Cocytus to be near Acheron. Hear Virgil, Aeneid 6:
"Forests hold all the middle ground,
And Cocytus, gliding in its dark bend, flows around."
And Claudian:
"With the spring of tears suppressed, Cocytus settled;
Acheron fell silent with its hushed waves."
Again Virgil, Aeneid 6:
"Acheron belches all its sand into Cocytus."
Where Servius says this invention pertains to natural philosophy: that he who lacks joy is without doubt sad; sadness is akin to mourning, which is born from death; rightly therefore Virgil imagines Acheron belching its sands through Styx into Cocytus. Accordingly, Cicero rightly mocks these things as fabulous, Tusculan Disputations 1: "Tell me, please, do those things terrify you—three-headed Cerberus in the underworld, the roaring of Cocytus, the crossing of Acheron, Tantalus dying of thirst with his chin touching the surface of the water?" So too Amos, chapter—
—5:8, says of God: "Who made Arcturus and Orion." Here he alludes to the fables of the poets, for from them the names were given to the stars. Hence Virgil:
"Arcturus, and the rainy Hyades, and the twin Bears;
And he surveys Orion armed with gold."
CANON XVIII. From the title of a prophecy one can often gather what kind it will be—whether sad, joyful, or mixed. For when its title is massa (Hebrew), that is, "burden" or "weight," it is a clear sign that it will be sad. For "burden" signifies a heavy and unbearable weight of vengeance and punishment, to be inflicted on the impious by a certain and irrevocable decree of God, in order to press down and bend or break their hard necks—they who despised the patience of God waiting for them to repent, and remained hardened in their wickedness. Hence it often signifies the complete destruction of a city or nation, as: "The burden of the word of the Lord in the land of Hadrach, and Damascus is its resting place" (Zechariah 9:1); "The burden of the word of the Lord upon Israel" (Zechariah 12:1). The burden upon the house of Ahab, by which his family was cut off (2 Kings 9:25). See Jeremiah 23:33ff. But when the title of the prophecy is "vision," or at any rate "the word of the Lord," then it is ordinarily joyful, "and promises prosperity, or after threats promises better things," says St. Jerome on Jeremiah 23, near the end. Finally, when the title is "the burden of the vision," as in Isaiah 22:1, or "the burden of the word of the Lord," as in Malachi 1:1, then it is partly sad, partly joyful. This canon of St. Jerome is frequently true, but not always. For the vision presented to Jeremiah (chapter 1), Joel (chapter 1), Amos (chapter 1), and Nahum (chapter 1), contains scarcely anything joyful, but all sad things, and therefore includes a burden, as Ribera rightly observes on Hosea 1:1. Moreover, only Obadiah inscribes and calls his prophecy a "Vision"; Nahum, Habakkuk, and Malachi inscribe theirs as a "Burden"; all the other Minor Prophets inscribe theirs as "The Word of the Lord." In the course of their prophecy, however, they occasionally call it a vision, to indicate its certainty. For sight is the most certain of all the senses. Hence Theophrastus, in Rhodiginus book 10, chapter 28, skillfully called sight the form of the senses: because the experience of the other senses is, as it were, actuated, perfected, and certified by sight alone. And St. Augustine, Confessions 10.35, teaches that the experience of the senses and their resolution, as it were, into faith, is situated in sight; hence we commonly speak of all senses as if they were eyes, saying: "See how it tastes," "see how it sounds," etc. And the maxim of Aristotle in Metaphysics 2 is that the end of contemplation is truth seen; hence our blessedness consists in the vision of God. The Prophets, therefore, abstracted from all other things and fixing the gaze of the mind on the contemplation of one simple truth, had a certain foretaste and beginning of blessedness, according to that saying of the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 13: "Now we see through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face"—citing which words, St. Augustine, On the Trinity 1.8, says: "Here contemplation is promised to us, the end of all actions, and the eternal perfection of joys."
Canon XIX
Canon XIX. Prophecy and ecstasy differ. For the Prophets often saw future things without ecstasy; yet sometimes they were alienated from their senses and rapt in ecstasy, as happened to Adam (Genesis 2:21), Abraham (Genesis 15:12), St. Peter (Acts 10:10), and St. John in the Apocalypse (which ecstasies were ordinarily caused, and continue to be caused, by angels, for they are the ministers of God). In all these passages the Greek word is ekstasis, which properly is a rapture of the mind alienated from the senses into something higher. Hence St. Gregory, Moralia 5.22, teaches that in ecstasy the mind, torn from the senses, sleeps to the world, but more laboriously keeps watch for God. "Ecstasy is therefore a waking sleep, or a sleeping wakefulness," according to Song of Songs 5: "I sleep, and my heart watches"—as if to say: My sense sleeps, but my mind watches. Note: St. Thomas (De Veritate, q. 13, a. 2, ad ult.; and Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 175, a. 3, ad 1; and on 2 Corinthians 12, lecture 1) teaches that an excess of the mind, ecstasy, and rapture sometimes occurs without alienation of the mind from the senses—namely, when someone uses his external senses and things, but his entire attention is devoted to contemplating and loving divine things. In this sense St. Dionysius (Divine Names 4) asserts that divine love causes ecstasy, for love transfers the lover from himself into the beloved God. For the soul is more where it loves than where it gives life; therefore it is more in God than in itself. Hence St. Bonaventure, in his treatise On the Degrees of Contemplation: "Ecstasy," he says, "is, having abandoned the exterior man, a certain pleasurable elevation of oneself above oneself, toward the super-intellectual fountain of divine love." But in another sense and according to the more usual meaning: "The said excess of mind, ecstasy, and rapture," says St. Thomas, "occurs when someone is actually abstracted from the use of the senses and sensible things to see certain things supernaturally; and this occurs either through abstraction from the external senses to an imaginative vision, or from the imagination as well to an intellectual vision; and this again either through intelligible infusions, or insofar as the intellect sees God through His essence." St. Thomas considers this latter to have been granted to St. Paul in his rapture (2 Corinthians 12:2); but the contrary is more true—namely, that St. Paul did not see the essence of God, as I showed there. But for the others—Adam, Abraham, St. Peter, and St. John—he considers the ecstasy to have occurred through abstraction from the senses, but with an imaginative vision, which is true and clear from the cited passages of Scripture. For ordinarily the mind in cognition uses phantasms; hence even when it is rapt, it still has the accompaniment of thoughts from the imagination.
Moreover, that someone can be alienated from the senses by the work of a demon, and indeed by the force of illness, and rapt into a kind of natural ecstasy, our author Delrio teaches in Disquisitions on Magic 2, question 25, where he refutes Cardano, who claims that "at will, anyone can be rapt by natural force," and Bodin, who holds that "in such an ecstasy the soul actually migrates from the body." Finally, St. Augustine, On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis 12.26: "When the soul," he says, "is rapt to those visions which are discerned by the spirit as similar to bodily things, it is entirely turned away from the senses of the body, more than is usual in sleep, but less than in death." For in sleep one is not so turned from the senses that they do not awaken at a slight sound, movement, or touch; but in ecstasy one feels no movement, sound, or touch, even if one is pinched or struck quite sharply. In death, however, the soul turns away not only from the external senses, but also from the internal ones—indeed, from the entire body, so that it no longer informs, animates, or gives life to it.
Now the tongue by which God speaks to the soul, and the soul to God, St. Bernard piously explains in Sermon 45 on the Song of Songs: "The Word and the soul," he says, "have their own tongues, by which they address one another and indicate their presence. The tongue of the Word is the favor of His condescension; but that of the soul is the fervor of devotion. A soul that does not have this is tongueless and speechless, and cannot have conversation with the Word. Therefore when He moves His tongue of this kind, wishing to speak to the soul, the soul cannot fail to feel it. For the word of God is living and more penetrating than any two-edged sword, reaching even to the division of the soul. And again, when the soul moves its tongue, the Word can much less remain hidden—not only because He is everywhere present, but because unless He Himself stimulates it, the tongue of devotion is by no means moved to speak. For the Word to say to the soul 'You are beautiful,' and to call her friend, is to pour into her that by which she may love, and presume herself to be loved." And St. Gregory, Moralia 5.20, explaining Job 4:12, "My ear received as if secretly the veins of His whisper," says: "The ear of the heart receives secretly the veins of the heavenly whisper, because the inspired mind perceives the subtlety of the intimate speech both swiftly and secretly. For unless it hides itself from exterior desires, it does not penetrate interior things; it hides itself in order to hear, and hears in order to be hidden—because being withdrawn from visible things, it beholds invisible things; and filled with invisible things, it perfectly despises visible things." When therefore God speaks to the soul and it hears Him speaking, there are not two actions, but one and the same: insofar as it proceeds from God, it is called speech; insofar as it is received in the person, it is called hearing. In the imagination God speaks through Angels; in the mind, by Himself. For He alone can directly enter the intellect and will, which an Angel cannot do. But Angels speak in the imagination through the movement of humors and animal spirits, in which the internal representations of things are carried—that is, by so mixing and combining them as to present this or that image, and consequently the thing they wish, to the imagination, and through the imagination to the intellect. St. Gregory enumerates the various modes of God's and the Angels' speech in Moralia 18.2.
Canon XX
CANON XX. Since all prophecy is supernatural, it equally requires a supernatural light, which is commonly called the prophetic light. For just as three things are required for bodily vision—first, the object emitting its image into the eye; second, the light illuminating the object; third, the vision itself, that is, the eye receiving the image and through it gazing upon and seeing the illuminated object, and by this means eliciting and producing the vision in itself—so likewise three things are required for prophetic vision: first, the object, namely the future thing that is foreseen; second, the prophetic light elevating the mind of the Prophet, so that he may see the future thing, as it were, from on high and at a distance; third, the vision and knowledge itself of the future thing. Moreover, the prophetic light is nothing other than God's very illumination and revelation, or the internal speech by which He illuminates the mind of the Prophet and reveals future things to him. This is partly of God, insofar as it is sent from God; partly of the Prophet, insofar as it is received in his mind—indeed, it is produced by God in and through the Prophet's mind vitally cooperating. Insofar as it is of God, it is called illumination; insofar as it is of the Prophet, it is called vision, hearing, or knowledge, as I said at the end of Canon XIX. This light, or illumination, is therefore like a flash or spiritual lightning, striking and illuminating the mind (according to Psalm 76:19: "Your lightnings illuminated the world." And Psalm 143:6: "Flash forth lightning, and You will scatter them")—by which the mind certainly knows the future thing revealed by God, and at the same time knows that it is revealed not by a demon but by God, just as happens in the act of faith: for the material object of faith is the thing revealed; the formal object is the divine revelation, or God Himself revealing. For I believe by faith that God is triune and one because God Himself, who is the first truth and can neither be deceived nor deceive, has revealed it. Therefore the Prophets, receiving God's revelation, were bound by divine faith to believe both their own oracles and that these had been revealed to them by God.
Spiritual persons, especially those devoted to prayer and contemplation, often feel similar illuminations, like flashes of lightning, by which their minds are partly illuminated to know more clearly and sublimely the attributes of God, the prophecies of the Prophets, and other mysteries of faith and Scripture; and partly they are inspired and kindled with love of God and heavenly things. Sinners likewise sometimes feel similar experiences, when God sends them pious thoughts and illuminations about death, judgment, the brevity of life, the vanity of concupiscences, hell, and heaven, by which they clearly see that they are acting badly and imprudently, and are in danger regarding their salvation, and therefore are struck with fear and sorrow, which impels them to repentance and a change of life. Now these illuminations are not free for the mind, but are necessarily received in it when God sends them—just as the vision of lightning is necessary, not free, for a wakeful open eye. But once received, the mind remains free, so that it may elicit a free act of faith regarding them, and freely believe them to be true, and thence conceive and form in itself other free acts of sorrow, repentance, love, and other virtues. For the illuminations which God sends and implants in the intellect, and the pious impulses and affections which He sends and implants in the will, are prevenient graces, awakening the mind numbed by sin or torpor, so that it may wake up and freely cooperate with them, and thus produce in itself acts of repentance, fear, love, and heroic virtues. We must continually pray that God frequently send these to us, for all our progress and salvation depends on them. So the Psalmist prays for them in Psalm 12:4: "Enlighten my eyes," he says, "lest I ever sleep in death; lest my enemy say: I have prevailed against him." Psalm 17:29: "For You light my lamp, O Lord; my God, enlighten my darkness." Psalm 33:6: "Come to God and be enlightened." Psalm 66:5: "May God have mercy on us and bless us; may He cause His face to shine upon us." Psalm 75:5: "You shine wonderfully from the eternal mountains." Isaiah 60:1: "Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you." Luke 1:79: "To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death." John 1:9: "He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into this world." Ephesians 5:14: "Arise, you who sleep, and Christ will enlighten you." Psalm 26:1: "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?" Job 11:17: "A brightness like noonday shall rise for you toward evening; and when you think yourself consumed, you shall rise like the morning star." Psalm 96:4: "His lightnings illuminated the world." Ezekiel 1:13: "This was the vision running among the living creatures—the brightness of fire, and from the fire lightning going forth. And the living creatures went and returned like the flash of glittering lightning." Job 36:29: "If He wishes, etc., to flash His light from above." Psalm 89:17: "May the splendor of the Lord our God be upon us, and direct the works of our hands." Isaiah 58:11: "He will fill your soul with splendors." Habakkuk 3:4: "His splendor shall be as light." Baruch 4:2: "We shall walk in the way toward His splendor."
Canon XXI
CANON XXI. From what has been said, it is clear that the ancient Philosophers erred who thought that divination occurs naturally—for they held that the soul possesses a prophetic power, namely, the capacity for divination, especially when it is near death, or agitated by melancholy, mania, or poetic frenzy. Their reasoning was that the soul has something of divinity, being as it were a particle of the divine breath: for it was created in the image of God; therefore it shares in the divination that is proper to God. So Plato held, in his Dialogue on Nature: "That God gave the power of divination to human dementia," he says, "can be shown by this argument: that no one, while of sound mind, attains any divine and true prophecy; but when the power of reason is either impeded by sleep, or oppressed by illness, or moved from its seat by some divine rapture, divination usually occurs." And in the Apology for Socrates, he asserts from Socrates' view that those who are near death customarily prophesy. And Aristotle, in Problems, section 30, problem 1: "Many," he says, "because that heat is near the seat of the mind, become entangled in diseases of madness, or grow feverish with a lymphatic instinct; from which Sibyls are produced, and Bacchantes, and all who are believed to be inspired by a divine breath—when, that is, it happens not from disease but from natural imbalance." Cicero says similar things in On Divination 1, and adds the reason: "When the mind," he says, "is withdrawn by sleep from the association and contagion of the body, then it remembers past things, perceives present things, and foresees future things. For the body of the sleeper lies like a dead man's, but the soul is vigorous and alive. Which it will do much more after death, when it has entirely departed from the body; and therefore as death approaches, it is much more prophetic." Hence he concludes that there is a threefold divination: "for all the power of divination flows from God, from fate, and from nature." And in book 2: "I have often heard," he says, "that no good poet can exist without an inflammation of the mind and a kind of breath of frenzy." For:
"There is a god within us; when he stirs, we grow warm.
That impulse holds the seeds of the sacred mind."
Porphyry held the same view, as Iamblichus reports in his book On the Mysteries of Egypt, section On Divine Dreams. St. Augustine seems to favor this opinion, Confessions 12, cited by St. Thomas (Summa Theologiae I, q. 86, a. 4, ad 2): "The soul," he says, "has a certain power of lot, so that by its own nature it can know future things; and therefore when it is withdrawn from the senses of the body and in a certain way returns to itself, it becomes a partaker of the knowledge of future things." But St. Thomas rightly excuses him and explains his meaning there, saying that the soul separated from the senses becomes apt and disposed to receive impressions from God, Angels, or demons, and through them to receive knowledge of future things, which it does not have of itself—and this alone is what St. Augustine means. Moreover, I searched diligently for these words in St. Augustine and have been unable to find them so far. I found only this, in Confessions 4.3 and 7.6: that planetary mathematicians (astrologers) occasionally divine and predict future things—not by art but by lot, that is, by chance—which is true and irrelevant to the present matter; indeed it insinuates the opposite. For among the many things they predict, they occasionally hit upon truth by chance; therefore they conjecture and arrive at truth not by the force of nature nor by the certainty of art, but by the chance of lot, like gamblers of future events.
This opinion of the Philosophers is erroneous and contradicts not only Sacred Scripture but also philosophy. For it is a matter of faith that prophecy is a divine work, and that foreknowledge of future contingent events is a gift proper to God, and therefore is a mark and sign of divinity. For as Tertullian says (Apology 20): "The testimony of divinity is the truth of divination." Hence God, contending with idols, says: "Announce the things that are to come in the future, and we shall know that you are gods" (Isaiah 41:23). And St. Peter, 2 Peter 1: "No prophecy," he says, "is of private interpretation; for prophecy was never brought by human will, but holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Spirit." Hence all the Prophets everywhere prefix this title to their oracles: "The Word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord," etc. Prophecy, therefore, is a word foreknown and foretold by God, not by man. The physical reason is, first, that future contingent events are utterly undetermined: for they will be determined by a free agent, when the free will in future time freely determines itself to one of two contradictory alternatives. Therefore it is impossible that a man, demon, or angel should determinately foreknow and foresee them; this belongs to the power and omniscience of God, who by the infinite keenness and power of His mind foresees what the free will in such a time, place, and circumstances will choose and determine. Second, the human mind depends on imagination and the senses. For nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the sense, as Aristotle says. But future contingent events cannot be perceived by any sense; therefore they cannot be understood by man, any more than colors can be seen by a blind person. Third, what does not exist either in itself or in its cause cannot be known by man or angel. But future contingent events do not exist either in themselves or in their causes, which are still future and undetermined. Therefore they cannot be foreknown by man or angel. So St. Augustine, On the Divination of Demons, and St. Thomas (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 4, a. 1, ad 3).
Now the argument of Plato and Cicero only proves that the soul, when near death and separated from the senses, or when it grows heated by love, wine, fire, mania, bile, etc., is excited and sharpened so that it raises itself, as it were, above itself, and sees and knows things that it otherwise would not see or know—but within the limits and boundaries of nature. Hence it then has presentiments about things to which either bile and humor incline, or whose causes and principles it sees, or which the excited and heated animal spirits naturally suggest to it, as is evident in poets. For this reason prudent men employ a similar practice when they wish to compose a poem, oration, sermon, or anything else: they take care that the body and head are warmed by fire, sleep, clothing, etc., and thus compose their works with a heated brain. For heat excites the animal spirits, which when excited suggest many remarkable ideas; but then, as the heat subsides, they review, select, judge, and arrange them. For genius consists in heat, but judgment in coolness. Hence the young excel in genius and invention, the old in judgment and discernment, since they have settled passions and cool affections. Moreover, demons often intervene in the mad, and suggest things that are remote or future—for they foreknow these from probable and subtle conjecture of causes.
Canon XXII
CANON XXII. The Prophets and hagiographic writers, when they prophesy or speak to particular provinces and peoples, deliberately employ the customs, rites, laws, merchandise, etc., and even many words proper to those nations, in order to accommodate themselves to them and make their own matters clearer to them. So St. Jerome writes on Obadiah that he uses the Assyrian word Sepharad, meaning "boundary," which Jerome himself translates as "Bosphorus" in the text of Obadiah, because the discourse concerned the Assyrians. So Daniel, chapter 2:3ff., uses many Babylonian names of musical instruments, as well as of magistrates—such as Satraps, Signaei, Adargazi, Gedabri, Detrabi, and Tiphthei. So Job, because he lived in Arabia and his book was originally written in Arabic, employs many Arabic words as well as Arabian customs, as St. Jerome testifies in his Prologue. The same Jerome, writing to Algasia (Letter 131, Question 10), says that the Apostle calls it a "human day" from the Cilician language (for he was a Cilician, that is, from Tarsus), when he says in 1 Corinthians 4:3: "It is a very small thing to me to be judged by you or by a human day." Such also is katabrabeueto in Colossians 2:18 (see what I said there). He adds: "There are many words which the Apostle uses more familiarly according to the custom of his city and province." Furthermore, the Prophets often allude to histories and events of their own time, which were then known to everyone but are now unknown—and for this reason they are sometimes obscure to us.
Canon XXIII
CANON XXIII. Prophecy properly concerns future time; but by catachresis it also extends to the past and present. Hence Homer, Iliad 1, says that Calchas the seer knew all things—past, present, and future. Imitating this, Virgil in Georgics 4 says:
"For the seer knew all things:
What is, what has been, and what is soon to come."
St. Gregory gives examples, Homily 1 on Ezekiel: "Prophecy," he says, "is about the future: 'Behold, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son' (Isaiah 7). Prophecy about the past: 'In the beginning God created heaven and earth.' For a man spoke about a time when there was no man. Prophecy about the present, 1 Corinthians 14: 'If all prophesy, and there enter an unbeliever or uninstructed person, he is convicted by all, he is judged by all: for the hidden things of his heart are made manifest,' etc. This is rightly called prophecy, not because it predicts things to come, but because it reveals hidden things. For a future event is hidden in future time; but a present thought is hidden in the secret heart." Knowledge of both, therefore, is of equal power—namely, not human but divine. So Elisha the Prophet, being absent, saw Gehazi asking for and receiving money from Naaman: "Was not my heart present," he said, "when the man turned from his chariot to meet you?" (2 Kings 5).
St. Gregory adds that the Prophets intermingled future things with past, and that Moses did this "so that when those things he predicted about the future were fulfilled, he might also show that he had spoken truly about the past."
Canon XXIV
CANON XXIV. From the preceding Canon XXIII, St. Gregory in the same Homily 1 on Ezekiel draws eight modes and species of prophecy. The first is: "Sometimes," he says, "the spirit of prophecy touches the mind of the prophet concerning the present, but in no way touches it concerning the future." He gives the example: "Just as John the Baptist, seeing the Lord coming, said: 'Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world.' But when he was about to die, he sent his disciples to ask: 'Are You the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?' By these words it is shown that he knew the Redeemer had come to earth, but doubted whether He would descend in His own person to open the gates of hell. For he had been touched by the spirit of prophecy concerning the present—who, seeing the humanity of the Mediator and understanding His divinity, confessed the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. But he had not been touched concerning the future, because he did not know of His coming to the underworld."
The second: "Sometimes the spirit of prophecy touches the mind of the prophet concerning the future, but does not touch it concerning the present, as the history of Genesis clearly testifies. When Isaac sent his son Esau to hunt, Rebecca substituted the younger son for the blessing, who, clothed in goatskins, simulated his brother's body for his father's touch. Isaac gave the younger son the blessing as if to the elder, and announced things that were far in the future for him; but he could not know who was standing before him. The spirit of prophecy therefore touched the prophet's mind concerning the future, but did not touch it concerning the present, when the father, with dimming eyes, both predicted future things and did not know the son who was present."
The third: "Sometimes the spirit touches the mind of the prophet concerning the present and the future equally; which we are clearly taught from the same book of Genesis. For it is written there that, when Jacob was approaching the end of his life and had placed the two sons of Joseph before him, so that from his blessing they might obtain things far in the future—he placed the elder at his right and the younger at his left. And when, with eyes dimming from old age, he could not discern by human sight which was the older and which the younger, crossing his arms, he placed his right hand on the younger and his left on the elder. When his son tried to correct this, he said: 'It is not fitting so, father, for this one is the firstborn.' He heard: 'I know, my son, I know. And he indeed shall be among peoples and shall be multiplied; but his younger brother shall be greater than he.' The spirit of prophecy therefore touched the prophet's mind concerning both the present and the future, since Jacob both announced things to come and discerned by the spirit those placed before him whom he could not see with bodily eyes. So too the spirit of prophecy touched the mind of the prophet Ahijah concerning both the present and the future, when with dimming eyes he recognized her who was pretending to be someone else as the wife of Jeroboam, and revealed to her whatever was to happen, saying: 'Come in, wife of Jeroboam; thus says the Lord God of Israel: Because you have done evil above all who were before you, and have made for yourself foreign and molten gods to provoke Me to anger, and have cast Me behind your body, therefore I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam.' From the present and the future equally, therefore, the mind of the prophet was touched, who could both detect her as she entered and announce to her things to come."
The fourth: "Sometimes the mind of the prophet is touched equally concerning the past, the present, and the future: as Elizabeth, beholding Mary coming to her, recognized that she was carrying the incarnate Word in her womb, and already called her the mother of her Lord, saying: 'Whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?' About whose conception it was also said to Joseph through the angel: 'What is born in her is of the Holy Spirit.' Which is to say, Elizabeth says: 'Blessed are you who believed, because there shall be a fulfillment of those things that were told you by the Lord.' For by saying 'Blessed are you who believed,' she clearly shows that she knew through the Spirit the words of the angel that had been spoken to Mary; and by adding 'There shall be a fulfillment of those things told you by the Lord,' she foresaw what would follow for her in the future. At the same time, therefore, she was touched by the spirit of prophecy concerning the past, present, and future—she who both recognized that Mary had believed the promises of the angel, and, calling her mother, understood that she was carrying in her womb the Redeemer of the human race. And when she predicted that all things would be fulfilled, she also perceived what would follow in the future."
The fifth: "Sometimes the spirit of prophecy touches the mind concerning the past, but does not touch it concerning the future, as is clearly shown in the Apostle Paul, who says to his disciples: 'I make known to you, brethren, the Gospel that was preached by me, that it is not according to man; for I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but through the revelation of Jesus Christ.' Whence he also says to other disciples: 'According to revelation the mystery was made known to me.' Yet this very Gospel, which he had learned through revelation, when he was going up to Jerusalem to preach, he says: 'Behold, I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing what things shall happen to me there.'"
The sixth: "Sometimes the spirit of prophecy touches concerning the future, but does not touch concerning the past, as is written in the incident of Elisha. When one of the sons of the prophets was cutting wood, the iron of his axe fell into the water, and he cried out: 'Alas, alas, my Lord, and I had borrowed it!' And the man of God said: 'Where did it fall?' And the other showed him the place. So he cut a piece of wood and threw it in, and the iron floated. In this deed of the prophet it is recognized that he who asked where it had fallen knew what he was going to do; but since he asked, it is clear that he did not know where the iron had fallen. The spirit of prophecy therefore had touched Elisha's mind concerning the future, but did not touch it concerning the past—for he could know that the iron sunk in the depths was going to be called back to the surface, but he did not at all know where it had fallen."
The seventh: "Sometimes the spirit of prophecy touches concerning the present in part, and in part does not touch. This is testified by the history of the Apostle Peter, when soldiers sent to him by Cornelius were announced to him by the Spirit. For it is written: 'And the Spirit said to him: Behold, three men are looking for you.' To whom he went down and, asking, said: 'What is the reason for which you have come?' In these words it is shown that he had not heard by the Spirit the very reason for which he was asking the soldiers. In the present, therefore, the Spirit had touched Peter's mind in part and in part had not touched it—for he said that the soldiers were there, but was silent about the reason they had come."
The eighth: "Sometimes the spirit touches concerning the future in part, and in part does not touch. As the sons of the prophets say to Elisha about Elijah being taken up: 'Do you know that today the Lord will take your master from you?' Yet after he was taken, they scatter in various directions and search for him among the rocks and valleys. The spirit of prophecy therefore had touched their minds concerning the future in part, and in part had not touched them—when they searched for one they knew was to be taken up but would not be found. They were therefore touched in part and not touched in part—they knew that he could be taken up but did not know that he could not be found. Elisha himself was likewise touched in part by the spirit of prophecy concerning the future, and in part not touched, when he said to the king of Israel: 'Strike the ground with a javelin.' And when he had struck three times and stopped, the man of God was angry with him and said: 'If you had struck five, six, or seven times, you would have struck Syria to its destruction; but now you shall strike it only three times.' He who knew that he would strike Syria as many times as he struck the ground; but when he told him 'Strike the ground,' he did not know how many times he would strike it—indeed, he was indignant that the ground had been struck only three times. So it is clear that he was touched concerning the future in part and in part not touched—he who predicted that Syria would be struck, but wished the ground to be struck more."
Canon XXV
Canon XXV. "Sometimes," says St. Gregory in the same place, "the spirit of prophecy is lacking to the Prophets, and is not always present to their minds—so that when they do not have it, they may recognize that they have it by gift when they do. Hence when Elisha forbade his servant Gehazi from pulling the weeping Shunammite woman from his feet, he said: 'Leave her alone, for her soul is in bitterness, and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not indicated it to me.' Likewise, when Jehoshaphat asked him about future things and the spirit of prophecy was lacking to him, he ordered a minstrel to be brought, so that the spirit of prophecy might descend upon him through the praise of psalmody and fill his mind with things to come. For when the voice of psalmody is performed with the intention of the heart, through it a path to the heart is prepared for the Almighty Lord, so that He may pour into the attentive mind either the mysteries of prophecy or the grace of compunction."
Canon XXVI
Canon XXVI. "Sometimes the holy Prophets, when consulted," says St. Gregory in the same place, "from their great habit of prophesying, put forth certain things from their own spirit, and they suspect that they are saying these things from the spirit of prophecy; but because they are holy, they are quickly corrected by the Holy Spirit, hear from Him what is true, and reprove themselves for having spoken falsely." Thus Nathan, says St. Gregory, was a Prophet, because he revealed and rebuked David's secret adultery and murder; but in telling David about the building of the temple, as though God wished it to be built by David, he erred. Hence, immediately warned of his error by God, he corrected it. "In this matter, the difference between false and true Prophets is this: that true Prophets, if they ever say anything from their own spirit, quickly correct it, instructed by the Holy Spirit in the minds of their hearers. But false prophets both announce false things, and being strangers to the Holy Spirit, persist in their falsehood."
Canon XXVII
CANON XXVII. The expressions "no more" and "no longer" in Scripture and the Prophets often do not signify eternity, but a length of time—namely, that the thing in question will not exist for a very long time, even though it may exist afterward, that is, after the death and memory of the people then living. For then it seems to be, as it were, another and new age, to which ordinary human speech does not extend, any more than their life or memory does. Thus, concerning the birth of Christ, Isaiah says in chapter 2:4: "They shall no longer be trained for war," because when Christ was born there was universal peace in the world, and it lasted long. Likewise the same prophet, chapter 23:12, says of Tyre: "You shall no longer boast." And Ezekiel of the same, chapter 26:13: "The sound of your harps shall no longer be heard." And verse 14: "You shall not be rebuilt"—namely, for a long time; for afterward it was rebuilt and resumed its former glory, until it was devastated again by Alexander the Great. In a similar way, "eternal," "age," "generation of generations" often denote not absolute eternity, but a temporary and human one—that is, a long time—as when the Law of Moses is said to be eternal. See Canon IV on the Pentateuch.
Canon XXVIII
CANON XXVIII. Hebrew verbs sometimes signify a completed act, sometimes a continuing one, sometimes an incipient one, sometimes merely an intended one. For example, "I believe" sometimes means "I intend to believe," sometimes "I begin to believe," sometimes "I continue believing and am confirmed in faith," sometimes "I fully and perfectly believe," as I have shown elsewhere. Furthermore, a thing is said to happen which is apt and inclined to happen; and a person is said to do something when he has the power to do it, so that "I do" is the same as "I can do." Thus Job 9:7 says: "He commands the sun and it does not rise"—that is, He can command; and verse 6: "He moves (that is, can at a nod move) the earth from its place, and its pillars are shaken." Amos 9:5: "He touches the earth and it melts"—touches, that is, can so touch it that it melts. See more in Salmerón, Prolegomena 20, series 2, Canon 12. Thus the Prophets say that under Christ all sins are to be abolished, and justice, peace, holiness, and every virtue will sprout throughout the whole world—because this was naturally going to happen, and Christ accomplished this very thing, as far as His part is concerned. For He gave us the ransom of His blood and His powerful and abundant grace, by which each person can abolish all sins and implant all virtues in the mind, if he wishes to use it and cooperate with it—even though many do not abolish them or implant virtues, because they reject or neglect the grace of Christ. Furthermore, this does not happen all at once, but gradually, as the soul grows, together with the Church, in faith and virtues.
Canon XXIX
CANON XXIX. He is called the founder or author of a thing who adorned and enlarged it, even if he was not the first to make it. Thus Alexander the Great is called the founder of Alexandria, because he enlarged and adorned the city that had long since been founded, and gave it his own name. Thus Nebuchadnezzar says of Babylon, Daniel 4:27: "Is this not Babylon the great city, which I have built?"—that is, which I have enlarged and adorned; for Babylon was founded long before by Nimrod (Genesis 10:10). Thus Romulus is said to have founded Rome, although Virgil says of Evander, who was before Romulus, in Aeneid 8:
"Then king Evander, founder of the Roman citadel."
Thus frequently in Scripture someone is said to have built a place or city who rebuilt or restored it after it had collapsed, been destroyed, or been devastated.
Canon XXX
Canon XXX. The dative among the Hebrews often is redundant through paragoge (an added syllable), as in Song of Songs 1: "If you do not know yourself" (Hebrew: "to yourself"), "O most beautiful among women, go forth"—where "yourself" and "to yourself" are redundant. Likewise, chapter 2:10 and 13: "Arise and come"—in Hebrew: "Arise to yourself, come to yourself." So the Hebrews say: "Go to yourself," meaning simply "go, depart." So Isaiah 6:8: "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Some consider "for us" to be added by paragoge for ornament; and likewise "for himself" in Isaiah 59:16: "His arm saved for himself"—although a more genuine sense of these passages may exist, as I noted there.
Canon XXXI
CANON XXXI. In the Prophets there is frequently a climax, that is, a ladder or gradation, for both the elegance and the force of speech. Such is Hosea 2:21: "I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the wheat and wine and oil; and these shall hear Jezreel." Such is Joel 1:4: "What the caterpillar left, the locust ate; and what the locust left, the cankerworm ate; and what the cankerworm left, the blight consumed." Such is the formula repeated seven times in Amos chapters 1 and 2: "For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn it back." Similar is that of the blessed Peter Damian, Sermon on St. Andrew: "Only the heart of man is capable of reason and the mysteries of God. The heart is in the breast, the soul in the heart, the mind in the soul, faith in the mind, Christ in faith; and this, I think, is what the Apostle means when he says that Christ dwells through faith in your hearts." And that of St. Gregory, Homily 29 on the Gospels: "Behold, He comes leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills: for from heaven He came into the womb, from the womb He came into the manger, from the manger He came to the cross, from the cross He came into the tomb, from the tomb He returned to heaven." Now, "Gradation," says Cicero (Rhetorica ad Herennium 4), "is a figure in which one does not descend to the following word until one has ascended to the preceding one, in this manner: For what remaining hope of liberty is there, if whatever pleases them is permitted, and what is permitted they can do, and what they can do they dare, and what they dare they do, and what they do is not troublesome to you?"
Canon XXXII
CANON XXXII. Paradoxes are frequent among the Prophets. Such is Hosea 1:2: "Go, take yourself a wife of fornications, and have children of fornications." And Hosea 13:14: "I will be your death, O death; I will be your sting, O hell." And Jonah 1:2 [2:1]: "Jonas was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." And Micah 5:2: "From you (O Bethlehem) shall come forth for Me one who is to be ruler in Israel; and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity"—for if his going forth is from eternity, how will it happen in time? Such is the saying: "He who desires the whole loses the whole; therefore the half is more than the whole," which I discussed on Habakkuk 1:15. So Zechariah 5:8 saw wickedness as a woman enclosed in an amphora, being carried to Babylon. And chapter 9:17, wine making virgins sprout, though wine incites to lust. But they especially speak paradoxes when they prophesy about Christ's incarnation, life, passion, resurrection, Church, and the sending of the Holy Spirit. For the entire economy of Christ's life is full of paradoxes, as is His doctrine and philosophy. For what is more paradoxical and incredible to the wise of this world than that "humility exalts, poverty enriches, fasting satiates, consolation lies in weeping, and joy in the cross?" Yet Christ openly proclaims these things: "Everyone who humbles himself shall be exalted. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are you when they curse you and persecute you, etc.; rejoice and be glad, for your reward is plentiful in heaven" (Matthew 5:1ff.). For the "Prophets" were "men of portents," as Zechariah says (3:8), and "a portent in Israel," as Isaiah says (8:18). So Cicero wrote his own, or rather the Stoics' paradoxes—that is, "marvels," he says, "contrary to the opinion of all"—namely these: That only what is honorable is good; that nothing is lacking for a happy life to one endowed with virtue; that sins are equal, and right actions too (but this is not so much a paradox as a proven error of the Stoics); that only the wise man is free, and every fool is a slave; that only the wise man is rich.
Canon XXXIII
CANON XXXIII. Nearly all the prophecies of the Old Testament have been fulfilled either before Christ or through Christ. I except a few concerning Gog, Magog, the Antichrist, the judgment and end of the world, which are found in Ezekiel 38 and 39, Daniel 7:25, and chapter 11:36ff., and chapter 12. Some, however, have divined from these things still future, first, by accommodation: as Proclus, Bishop of Constantinople, applied to Theodosius the Younger, fighting against the Scythians, those things which God threatens against Gog and Magog (for they were the Scythians and Tartars), Ezekiel 38:22—because from the plagues sent from heaven upon the Scythians, he probably conjectured their destruction, as Socrates reports (History 7.42). Second, by a divine omen: as when St. Anthony, St. Francis, St. Martin, Clovis, and others (whose examples I reviewed on Isaiah 8:20), by God's command or instinct, from the reading of the Prophets or of Sacred Scripture at its first occurrence, received a rule of life or learned the outcome of a war or other future event. I said "by God's instinct," because otherwise to do this is superstition and a tempting of God. Third, by a new prophecy. Thus Joachim, Abbot of Fiore, writing on Isaiah 13ff., says: The burden of Babylon refers to Rome; of the Chaldeans, to Germany; of the Philistines, to the Lombards; of the Moabites, to the Greeks; of Tyre, to the Sicilians; of Egypt, to the French, etc., as I noted at the end of the Introduction to Isaiah. But in all things he is obscure and enigmatic, and in some things false and deceiving—though he was considered by many to be a Prophet. In the preceding century, Girolamo Savonarola, through the oracles of Amos, Zechariah, and Daniel, prophesied adversities and prosperities that were to happen to the Florentines within a hundred years—that the Turkish emperor would occupy Italy and Rome, and would become Christian, as would the rest of the Turks and Saracens; that the Pope would transfer his seat from Rome to Jerusalem; that an angelic Pope would soon come who would reform the entire Church. He asserted these things so confidently that he said they had been revealed to him by God, and that many of his hearers would see them actually fulfilled. But experience taught that in most things he had strayed from the truth and been deceived, and that Florence was conquered shortly after; hence he himself ended his life with a wretched death. See Ambrose Catharinus, On the Prophecies of Savonarola, and Raphael Volaterranus, Geography 5, at the end.
Similar is the prophetic book that circulates under the name of Methodius the Martyr, but falsely: for the book's author is not Methodius the Martyr, Bishop of Olympus in Lycia and afterward of Tyre, but Methodius of Cyr. In which, since the Master of the Sentences and other things not sufficiently in accord with reason are cited, this book could seem to have been composed by some great rogue, says Salmerón, Prolegomena 7, near the end.
I said "of the Old Testament"; for in the Apocalypse, which is the prophecy of the New Testament, many things are predicted that are still future, as I shall show in my commentary on it. But many err in it, twisting its oracles—which are general and concern the whole Church—to particular persons or events. I dealt in Rome with a certain person who had written an entire volume of such divinations, or rather conjectural imaginings, on the Apocalypse, and boasted that he could gather from it specifically who the future Popes and Cardinals would be. Truly the Comic poet says: "Lovers fabricate dreams for themselves"; and there are those who need hellebore.
Canon XXXIV
CANON XXXIV. For grasping the genuine sense of Sacred Scripture, much depends on the proper joining or dividing, contraction or expansion of its chapters, sentences, and words. Examples will make this clear. Ecclesiasticus 24:20—many codices read: "In the streets, like cinnamon and balsam giving forth fragrance, I gave a sweet odor." And so it is still read in the Office of the Blessed Virgin at None, with an obscure and difficult sense, which the Roman Bibles clarify by punctuating differently, namely thus: "Like a plane tree I was exalted beside water in the streets. Like cinnamon and balsam giving forth fragrance, I gave a sweet odor." For it is plane trees that are planted in streets, not cinnamon and balsam. Likewise, 1 Samuel 3:2—many read: "His eyes (Eli's) had dimmed, and he could not see the lamp of God before it was extinguished." What is this? Did Eli see better in the dark with the lamp extinguished than in the light when it was shining? Was Eli like an owl, or a firefly? The Roman codices clarify the matter, reading and punctuating thus: "His eyes had dimmed, and he could not see. The lamp of God had not yet been extinguished; Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the Lord." It is a periphrasis for night, as if to say: While the lamps were still burning and Samuel was sleeping, the Lord appeared to him; for the lamps burned at night in the tabernacle and were extinguished in the morning. So St. Jerome. Likewise, the first verse of Haggai chapter 2 should be referred to the end of chapter 1; otherwise it manifestly conflicts with the second verse that immediately follows, as is clear to anyone who looks. St. Jerome and others consider there to be a similar diastole in Jeremiah 28:1, as I noted there. There are several such cases, which I have annotated in their proper places.
Note here: The modern division of the chapters of Sacred Scripture was not made by the Prophets, nor by the Greek or Latin Fathers, but is later and more recent than them, as Sixtus of Siena teaches at length in Library 3, in the method of division. I except the Psalms, which were individually dictated and written separately. For the Fathers cite Sacred Scripture not by chapter reference but by reference to histories or subject matter. Thus St. Augustine says he wrote commentaries from the beginning of Genesis to the expulsion of Adam from paradise, which we would call "on the first three chapters of Genesis." St. Gregory says he wrote on the book of Kings from the beginning to the anointing of David as king, which we would call "on the first fifteen chapters of 1 Kings." Likewise, Elias Levita, in his Preface to the Masorah, says the whole law—that is, the Pentateuch—was formerly one pasuk, that is, one treatise without incision or division. Hence St. Hilary, writing on Matthew, divided it into 33 Canons; and Ambrose divided St. Luke into 64 titles, and Bede into 93 chapters—though Sixtus of Siena suspects this division was made by others. Ammonius of Alexandria, or as others prefer, Eusebius of Caesarea or Tatian, according to the number of subjects in the Gospel concordance, distributed St. Matthew into 251 chapters, Mark into 235, Luke into 345, and John into 236. Furthermore, in the Greek interpreters from 600 years ago—namely Euthymius, Oecumenius, Arethas, Andrew of Crete, and the Suda—a distribution of chapters in the New Testament is found similar to ours, but somewhat larger. Therefore the chapter division that we now see in the Bibles seems to have been made shortly after that time. Hence St. Thomas, Alexander of Hales, Albert, St. Bonaventure, and their contemporaries use it. Finally, the ancients measured books by the number of verses, not chapters; and a verse consisted of six words. Thus St. Jerome, in his Preface to Origen's Homilies on the Song of Songs, says Origen wrote nearly twenty thousand verses on the Song. The same, in On Illustrious Men, says that Gregory Nazianzen encompassed all his works in thirty thousand verses. And in his Apology against Rufinus, he says Hilary borrowed from Origen nearly forty thousand verses, and that he himself, while expounding the Epistle to the Ephesians, dictated a thousand verses daily. So Sixtus. It is no wonder, then, if this division is sometimes less apt or convenient, as I have noted in the appropriate places.
Canon XXXV
CANON XXXV. Euphemism for the Greeks is the pursuit of good omen; for rhetoricians it is a figure by which names or things of ill omen are changed to those of good omen, or at least averted and deprecated—as Terence in the Andria: "If there should be (God forbid) a separation." This occurs not infrequently in Scripture. For they do not dare to name a curse or blasphemy by its own name, due to its enormity and execrableness, but by euphemism they call it by the contrary name, "blessing"—as: "Naboth blessed," that is, cursed, "God and the king" (1 Kings 21:13). "Bless," that is, curse, "God, and die" (Job 2:9). So in an execratory oath they say: "May God do this to me, and add this"—but by euphemism they are silent about the evil one imprecates upon oneself, as a sad thing and of ill omen. So David's soldiers ask for provisions from Nabal while he is shearing sheep, saying by euphemism: "For we have come on a good day" (1 Samuel 25:9). Close to this is charientism, that is, urbanity, wit, and festiveness of speech—a rhetorical figure by which harsh things are stated more pleasantly. For example, if people ask whether anyone sought us, the answer is given: "Good fortune"—from which it is understood that we sought no one. So when a mother asks: "I hear my son was captured in battle; is it true?"—her friends answer, festively lightening her grief: "No, he has been ransomed"—by which they tacitly mean that he was captured and badly treated, but has now been ransomed. So Cicero, in the speech On the Manilian Law, rather than say the consular fasces had been captured, said they had been redeemed. So it is more willingly heard that a wound was healed than that it was inflicted; that a house was restored than demolished; that legions were replenished with new reinforcements than diminished by slain soldiers. So Isaiah says (40:1): "Be comforted, be comforted, my people, etc., for her warfare is accomplished, her iniquity is pardoned"—by which he tacitly means that she had been wicked and unjust. So that wise woman of Tekoa festively transferred Absalom's crime and fratricide to herself and her own sons, in order to obtain his pardon from David (2 Samuel 14:6). So Nathan the Prophet, in order to rebuke King David for the adultery and murder of Uriah, used the parable of the rich man who seized and slaughtered the poor man's little ewe lamb, so that in its enormity the king might see the monstrousness of his own crime (2 Samuel 12:2). And this is the most convenient way of rebuking great men who, proud of their wealth and titles, do not tolerate being openly and directly reproached. Illustrious examples of charientism exist in the letter of Valerius to Rufinus, in which he persuades him not to marry (in volume 9 of the Works of St. Jerome). For it reads: "Pacuvius, weeping, said to his neighbor Arrius: 'Friend, I have an unlucky tree in my garden, from which my first wife hanged herself, then the second, and now the third.' To whom Arrius replied: 'I am amazed that amid so many successes you have found tears. Good gods, how many savings that tree has hung up for you! Give me some cuttings from that tree, which I may plant.' I fear you too will need to beg for cuttings from that tree, when they can no longer be found. Cato of Utica said: If the world could exist without women, our society would not be without gods. King Phoroneus said to his brother Leontius: Nothing would be lacking for my supreme happiness, if a wife had always been lacking to me. Metellus answered Marius, when he refused to marry his daughter—rich in dowry, noble in beauty, illustrious in lineage, blessed in reputation: 'I prefer to be my own man rather than hers.' To which Marius replied: 'Rather, she herself would be yours—
—but he said: Rather, a husband must belong to his wife. For it is logical: Subjects will be such as their predicates allow. Lais of Corinth asked Demosthenes a hundred talents for her consent. But he, looking up to heaven, said: I do not buy repentance at so high a price.'"