The knowledge both of language
and things is helpful for the understanding of figurative expressions
In the case of figurative signs, again, if ignorance of any of
them should chance to bring the reader to a standstill, their
meaning is to be traced partly by the knowledge of languages,
partly by the knowledge of things. The pool of Siloam, for example,
where the man whose eyes our Lord had anointed with clay made
out of spittle was commanded to wash, has a figurative significance,
and undoubtedly conveys a secret sense; but yet if the evangelist
had not interpreted that name, a meaning so important would lie
unnoticed. And we cannot doubt that, in the same way, many Hebrew
names which have not been interpreted by the writers of those
books, would, if any one could interpret them, be of great value
and service in solving the enigmas of Scripture. And a number
of men skilled in that language have conferred no small benefit
on posterity by explaining all these words without reference
to their place in Scripture, and telling us what Adam means,
what Eve, what Abraham, what Moses, and also the names of places,
what Jerusalem signifies, or Sion, or Sinai, or Lebanon, or Jordan,
and whatever other names in that language we are not acquainted
with. And when these names have been investigated and explained,
many figurative expressions in Scripture become clear. Ignorance
of things, too, renders figurative expressions obscure, as when
we do not know the nature of the animals, or minerals, or plants,
which are frequently referred to in Scripture by way of comparison.
The fact so well known about the serpent, for example, that to
protect its head it will present its whole body to its assailants
-- how much light it throws upon the meaning of our Lord's command,
that we should be wise as serpents; that is to say, that for
the sake of our head, which is Christ, we should willingly offer
our body to the persecutors, lest the Christian faith should,
as it were, be destroyed in us, if to save the body we deny our
God! Or again, the statement that the serpent gets rid of its
old skin by squeezing itself through a narrow hole, and thus
acquires new strength -- how appropriately it fits in with the
direction to imitate the wisdom of the serpent, and to put off
the old man, as the apostle says, that we may put on the new;
and to put it off, too, by coming through a narrow place, according
to the saying of our Lord, "Enter ye in at the strait gate!"
As, then, knowledge of the nature of the serpent throws light
upon many metaphors which Scripture is accustomed to draw from
that animal, so ignorance of other animals, which are no less
frequently mentioned by way of comparison, is a very great drawback
to the reader. And so in regard to minerals and plants: knowledge
of the carbuncle, for instance, which shines in the dark, throws
light upon many of the dark places in books too, where it is
used metaphorically; and ignorance of the beryl or the adamant
often shuts the doors of knowledge. And the only reason why we
find it easy to understand that perpetual peace is indicated
by the olive branch which the dove brought with it when it returned
to the ark, is that we know both that the smooth touch of olive
oil is not easily spoiled by a fluid of another kind, and that
the tree itself is an evergreen. Many, again, by reason of their
ignorance of hyssop, not knowing the virtue it has in cleansing
the lungs, nor the power it is said to have of piercing rocks
with its roots, although it is a small and insignificant plant,
cannot make out why it is said, Purge me with hyssop, and I shall
be clean". Ignorance of numbers, too, prevents us from understanding
things that are set down in Scripture in a figurative and mystical
way. A candid mind, if I may so speak, cannot but be anxious,
for example, to ascertain what is meant by the fact that Moses
and Elijah, and our Lord Himself, all fasted for forty days.
And except by knowledge of and reflection upon the number, the
difficulty of explaining the figure involved in this action cannot
be got over. For the number contains ten four times, indicating
the knowledge of all things, and that knowledge interwoven with
time. For both the diurnal and the annual revolutions are accomplished
in periods numbering four each; the diurnal in the hours of the
morning, the noontime, the evening, and the night; the annual
in the spring, summer, autumn, and winter months. Now while we
live in time, we must abstain and fast from all joy in time,
for the sake of that eternity in which we wish to live; although
by the passage of time we are taught this very lesson of despising
time and seeking eternity. Further, the number ten signifies
the knowledge of the Creator and the creature, for there is a
trinity in the Creator; and the number seven indicates the creature,
because of the life and the body. For the life consists of three
parts, whence also God is to be loved with the whole heart, the
whole soul, and the whole mind; and it is very clear that in
the body there are four elements of which it is made up. In this
number ten, therefore, when it is placed before us in connection
with time, that is, when it is taken four times, we are admonished
to live unstained by, and not partaking of, any delight in time,
that is, to fast for forty days. Of this we are admonished by
the law personified in Moses, by prophecy personified in Elijah,
and by our Lord Himself, who, as if receiving the witness both
of the law and the prophets, appeared on the mount between the
other two, while His three disciples looked on in amazement.
Next
, we have to inquire in the same way, how out of the number
forty springs the number fifty, which in our religion has no
ordinary sacredness attached to it on account of the Pentecost,
and how this number taken thrice on account of the three divisions
of time, before the law, under the law, and under grace, or perhaps
on account of the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and
the Trinity itself being added over and above, has reference
to the mystery of the most Holy Church, and reaches to the number
of the one hundred and fifty-three fishes which were taken after
the resurrection of our Lord, when the nets were cast out on
the right-hand side of the boat. And in the same way, many other
numbers and combinations of numbers are used in the sacred writings,
to convey instruction under a figurative guise, and ignorance
of numbers often shuts out the reader from this instruction.
26. Not a few things, too, are closed against us and obscured
by ignorance of music. One man, for example, has not unskillfully
explained some metaphors from the difference between the psalters
and the harp. And it is a question which it is not out of place
for learned men to discuss, whether there is any musical law
that compels the psalters of ten chords to have just so many
strings; or whether, if there be no such law, the number itself
is not on that very account the more to be considered as of sacred
significance, either with reference to the ten commandments of
the law (and if again any question is raised about that number,
we can only refer it to the Creator and the creature), or with
reference to the number ten itself as interpreted above. And
the number of years the temple was in building, which is mentioned
in the gospel -- viz., forty-six -- has a certain undefinable
musical sound, and when referred to the structure of our Lord's
body, in relation to which the temple was mentioned, compels
many heretics to confess that our Lord put on, not a false, but
a true and human body. And in several places in the Holy Scriptures
we find both numbers and music mentioned with honour.
Origin of the legend of the nine Muses
For we must not listen to the falsities of heathen superstition,
which represent the nine Muses as daughters of Jupiter and Mercury.
Varro refutes these, and I doubt whether any one can be found
among them more curious or more learned in such matters. He says
that a certain state (I don't recollect the name) ordered from
each of three artists a set of statues of the Muses, to be placed
as an offering in the temple of Apollo, intending that whichever
of the artists produced the most beautiful statues, they should
select and purchase from him. It so happened that these artists
executed their works with equal beauty, that all nine pleased
the state, and that all were bought to be dedicated in the temple
of Apollo; and he says that afterwards Hesiod the poet gave names
to them all. It was not Jupiter, therefore, that begat the nine
Muses, but three artists created three each. And the state had
originally given the order for three, not because it had seen
them in visions, nor because they had presented themselves in
that number to the eyes of any of the citizens, but because it
was obvious to remark that all sound, which is the material of
song, is by nature of three kinds. For it is either produced
by the voice, as in the case of those who sing with the mouth
without an instrument; or by blowing, as in the case of trumpets
and flutes; or by striking, as in the case of harps and drums,
and all other instruments that give their sound when struck.
No help is to be despised even
though it come from a profane source
But whether the fact is as Varro has related, or is not so, still
we ought not to give up music because of the superstition of
the heathen, if we can derive anything from it that is of use
for the understanding of Holy Scripture; nor does it follow that
we must busy ourselves with their theatrical trumpery because
we enter upon an investigation about harps and other instruments,
that may help us to lay hold upon spiritual things. For we ought
not to refuse to learn letters because they say that Mercury
discovered them; nor because they have dedicated temples to Justice
and Virtue, and prefer to worship in the form of stones things
that ought to have their place in the heart, ought we on that
account to forsake justice and virtue. Nay, but let every good
and true Christian understand that wherever truth may be found,
it belongs to his Master; and while he recognizes and acknowledges
the truth, even in their religious literature, let him reject
the figments of superstition, and let him grieve over and avoid
men who, "when they knew God, glorified him not as God,
neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations,
and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to
be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible
God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds,
and four-footed beasts, and creeping things."
Two kinds of heathen knowledge
But to explain more fully this whole topic (for it is one that
cannot be omitted), there are two kinds of knowledge which are
in vogue among the heathen. One is the knowledge of things instituted
by men, the other of things which they have noted, either as
transacted in the past or as instituted by God. The former kind,
that which deals with human institutions, is partly superstitious,
partly not.
The superstitious nature of human
institutions
All the arrangements made by men to the making and worshipping
of idols are superstitious, pertaining as they do either to the
worship of what is created or of some part of it as God, or to
consultations and arrangements about signs and leagues with devils,
such, for example, as are employed in the magical arts, and which
the poets are accustomed not so much to teach as to celebrate.
And to this class belong, but with a bolder reach of deception,
the books of the haruspices and augurs. In this class we must
place also all amulets and cures which the medical art condemns,
whether these consist in incantations, or in marks which they
call characters, or in hanging or tying on or even dancing in
a fashion certain articles, not with reference to the condition
of the body, but to certain signs hidden or manifest; and these
remedies they call by the less offensive name of physica, so
as to appear not to be engaged in superstitious observances,
but to be taking advantage of the forces of nature. Examples
of these are the earrings on the top of each ear, or the rings
of ostrich bone on the fingers, or telling you when you hiccup
to hold your left thumb in your right hand. 31. To these we may
add thousands of the most frivolous practices, that are to be
observed if any part of the body should jump, or if, when friends
are walking arm-in-arm, a stone, or a dog, or a boy, should come
between them. And the kicking of a stone, as if it were a divider
of friends, does less harm than to cuff an innocent boy if he
happens to run between men who are walking side by side. But
it is delightful that the boys are sometimes avenged by the dogs;
for frequently men are so superstitious as to venture upon striking
a dog who has run between them, -- not with impunity however,
for instead of a superstitious remedy, the dog sometimes makes
his assailant run in hot haste for a real surgeon. To this class,
too, belong the following rules: To tread upon the threshold
when you go out in front of the house; to go back to bed if any
one should sneeze when you are putting on your slippers; to return
home if you stumble when going to a place; when your clothes
are eaten by mice, to be more frightened at the prospect of coming
misfortune than grieved by your present loss. Whence that witty
saying of Cato, who, when consulted by a man who told him that
the mice had eaten his boots, replied, "That is not strange,
but it would have been very strange indeed if the boots had eaten
the mice."
Superstition of astrologers
Nor can we exclude from this kind of superstition those who were
called genethliaci, on account of their attention to birthdays,
but are now commonly called mathematici. For these, too, although
they may seek with pains for the true position of the stars at
the time of our birth, and may sometimes even find it out, yet
in so far as they attempt thence to predict our actions, or the
consequences of our actions, grievously err, and sell inexperienced
men into a miserable bondage. For when any freeman goes to an
astrologer of this kind, he gives money that he may come away
the slave either of Mars or of Venus, or rather, perhaps, of
all the stars to which those who first fell into this error,
and handed it on to posterity, have given the names either of
beasts on account of their likeness to beasts, or of men with
a view to confer honour on those men. And this is not to be wondered
at, when we consider that even in times more recent and nearer
our own, the Romans made an attempt to dedicate the star which
we call Lucifer to the name and honour of Caesar. And this would,
perhaps, have been done, and the name handed down to distant
ages, only that his ancestress Venus had given her name to this
star before him, and could not by any law transfer to her heirs
what she had never possessed, nor sought to possess, in life.
For where a place was vacant, or not held in honour of any of
the dead of former times, the usual proceeding in such cases
was carried out. For example, we have changed the names of the
months Quintilis and Sextilis to July and August, naming them
in honour of the men Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar; and from
this instance any one who cares can easily see that the stars
spoken of above formerly wandered in the heavens without the
names they now bear. But as the men were dead whose memory people
were either compelled by royal power or impelled by human folly
to honour, they seemed to think that in putting their names upon
the stars they were raising the dead men themselves to heaven.
But whatever they may be called by men, still there are stars
which God has made and set in order after His own pleasure, and
they have a fixed movement, by which the seasons are distinguished
and varied. And when any one is born, it is easy to observe the
point at which this movement has arrived, by use of the rules
discovered and laid down by those who are rebuked by Holy Writ
in these terms: "For if they were able to know so much that
they could weigh the world, how did they not more easily find
out the Lord thereof?"
The folly of observing the stars in order to predict the events
of a life
But to desire to predict the characters, the acts, and the fate
of those who are born from such an observation, is a great delusion
and great madness. And among those at least who have any sort
of acquaintance with matters of this kind (which, indeed, are
only fit to be unlearnt again), this superstition is refuted
beyond the reach of doubt. For the observation is of the position
of the stars, which they call constellations, at the time when
the person was born about whom these wretched men are consulted
by their still more wretched dupes. Now it may happen that, in
the case of twins, one follows the other out of the womb so closely
that there is no interval of time between them that can be apprehended
and marked in the position of the constellations. Whence it necessarily
follows that twins are in many cases born under the same stars,
while they do not meet with equal fortune either in what they
do or what they suffer, but often meet with fates so different
that one of them has a most fortunate life, the other a most
unfortunate. As, for example, we are told that Esau and Jacob
were born twins, and in such close succession, that Jacob, who
was born last, was found to have laid hold with his hand upon
the heel of his brother, who preceded him. Now, assuredly, the
day and hour of the birth of these two could not be marked in
any way that would not give both the same constellation. But
what a difference there was between the characters, the actions,
the labours, and the fortunes of these two, the Scriptures bear
witness, which are now so widely spread as to be in the mouth
of all nations. Nor is it to the point to say that the very smallest
and briefest moment of time that separates the birth of twins,
produces great effects in nature, and in the extremely rapid
motion of the heavenly bodies. For, although I may grant that
it does produce the greatest effects, yet the astrologer cannot
discover this in the constellations, and it is by looking into
these that he professes to read the fates. If, then, he does
not discover the difference when he examines the constellations,
which must, of course, be the same whether he is consulted about
Jacob or his brother, what does it profit him that there is a
difference in the heavens, which he rashly and carelessly brings
into disrepute, when there is no difference in his chart, which
he looks into anxiously but in vain? And so these notions also,
which have their origin in certain signs of things being arbitrarily
fixed upon by the presumption of men, are to be referred to the
same class as if they were leagues and covenants with devils.
Why we repudiate arts of divination
For in this way it comes to pass that men who lust after evil
things are, by a secret judgment of God, delivered over to be
mocked and deceived, as the just reward of their evil desires.
For they are deluded and imposed on by the false angels, to whom
the lowest part of the world has been put in subjection by the
law of God's providence, and in accordance with His most admirable
arrangement of things. And the result of these delusions and
deceptions is, that through these superstitious and baneful modes
of divination, many things in the past and future are made known,
and turn out just as they are foretold; and in the case of those
who practice superstitious observances, many things turn out
agreeably to their observances, and ensnared by these successes,
they become more eagerly inquisitive, and involve themselves
further and further in a labyrinth of most pernicious error.
And to our advantage, the Word of God is not silent about this
species of fornication of the soul; and it does not warn the
soul against following such practices on the ground that those
who profess them speak lies, but it says, "Even if what
they tell you should come to pass, hearken not unto them."
For though the ghost of the dead Samuel foretold the truth to
King Saul, that does not make such sacrilegious observances as
those by which his ghost was brought up the less detestable;
and though the ventriloquist woman in the Acts of the Apostles
bore true testimony to the apostles of the Lord, the Apostle
Paul did not spare the evil spirit on that account, but rebuked
and cast it out, and so made the woman clean. 36. All arts of
this sort, therefore, are either nullities, or are part of a
guilty superstition, springing out of a baleful fellowship between
men and devils, and are to be utterly repudiated and avoided
by the Christian as the covenants of a false and treacherous
friendship. Not as if the idol were anything," says the
apostle; "but because the things which they sacrifice they
sacrifice to devils and not to God; and I would not that ye should
have fellowship with devils." Now what the apostle has said
about idols and the sacrifices offered in their honour, that
we ought to feel in regard to all fancied signs which lead either
to the worship of idols, or to worshipping creation or its parts
instead of God, or which are connected with attention to medicinal
charms and other observances; for these are not appointed by
God as the public means of promoting love towards God and our
neighbour, but they waste the hearts of wretched men in private
and selfish strivings after temporal things. Accordingly, in
regard to all these branches of knowledge, we must fear and shun
the fellowship of demons, who, with the Devil their prince, strive
only to shut and bar the door against our return. As, then, from
the stars which God created and ordained, men have drawn lying
omens of their own fancy, so also from things that are born,
or in any other way come into existence under the government
of God's providence, if there chance only to be something unusual
in the occurrence, -- as when a mule brings forth young, or an
object is struck by lightning, -- men have frequently drawn omens
by conjectures of their own, and have committed them to writing,
as if they had drawn them by rule.