6. 10 The body an imperfect organ to the soul. EP. To our exertions to express ourselves likewise become faint'. For many a year's circuit has gone by since I have been afflicted with frequent pains in the bowels, and the powers of my stomach being broken down, makes me at all times and seasons weakly; and under the influence of fevers, slow, but in constant succession, I draw my breath with difficulty; and when in the midst of these sufferings I ponder with earnest Heb. 2. heed, that according to the testimony of Scripture, He Scourgeth every son whom He receiveth; the more I am weighed down by the severity of present afflictions, from my anticipations for eternity, I gather strength to breathe with so much the better assurance. And perchance it was this that Divine Providence designed, that I a stricken one, should set forth Job stricken, and that by these scourges I should the more perfectly enter into the feelings of one that was scourged. Yet it will be evident to all that consider the thing aright, that bodily ailment hinders the pursuits wherein I labour, and that with no slight power of opposition in this respect, that, when the powers of the flesh are not strong enough to discharge the office of speech, the mind cannot adequately convey its meaning. For what is the office of the body saving to be the organ of the mind; and cantan- though the musician be ever so skilled in playing', he cannot put his art in practice unless outward aids accord with canti- himself for that purpose, for we know that the melody' which the hand of the proficient bids, is not rightly given back by instruments that are out of order; nor does the wind express his art, if the pipe, gaping with crevices, gives a grating sound. How much more affected in quality then is a thing like this exposition of mine, wherein the grace of delivery is so dissipated by the broken condition of the instrument, that no contrivance of skill can avail to recover it! But I beg that in going through the statements of this work, you would not seek the foliage of eloquence therein: for by the sacred oracles the vanity of a barren wordiness is purposely debarred those that treat thereof, in that it is forbidden to plant a grove in the temple of God. And doubtless we are all of us aware, di cum P His letters add severe attacks of the gout to the infirmities mentioned here. see 1. xi. ep. 32. &c. 6 १ Adversitate.' This sense should be torne in mind when the Church prays against' adversity.' Artificial refinement ill suits Holy Writ. 11 that as often as the overrank crop shews stalks that abound LEAND. in leaves, the grains of the ears are least filled and swelling. And hence that art of speaking itself, which is conveyed by rules of worldly training, I have despised to observe; for as the tenor of this Epistle also will tell, I do not escape the collisions of metacism', nor do I avoid the confusion of barbarisms, and I slight the observing of situations and arrangements, and the cases of prepositions; for I account it very far from meet to submit the words of the divine Oracle to the rules of Donatus'. For neither are these observed by any of the translators thereof, in the authoritative' text of Holy1 auctoWrit. Now as my exposition takes its origin from thence, it is plainly meet that this production, like a kind of offspring, should wear the likeness of its mother'. Now it is the new Translation that I comment on; but when a case to be proved requires it, I take now the new and now the old for testimony, that as the Apostolic See, over which I preside by ordinance of God, uses both, the labours of my undertaking may have the support of both. i. e. either the collision of ms, or the letter m at the end of a word, followed by a vowel at the beginning of another. Vide Du Cange, in voc. Donatus was a great grammarian of the fourth century, the preceptor S. Jerome, who bigbly conends him. His work ammar was in such eral use as to be called a ' Donatus,' as we speak of a Virgil, or a Horace, or an Ainsworth. Vide Riogr. Univ. Paris, 1814. t. xi. There was a great number of Versions of both the Old and New Testament in the Latin tongue, from the Greek. Of these there was me NOTE A. S. Thom. Ag. thus settles the question of the bidden sense of Holy Writ. Summ. Theol. Qu.i. Art. 10. "I answer, it is to be said that God is the Author of Holy Scripture, Who has the power not only to adapt words to convey a meaning, which even man may do, but even things themselves, and so whereas in all sciences words have a signification, this particular science has this property, that the very things which are signified by words do also siguify somewhat further. That primary signification, therefore, whereby words signify things, the Apostle says in Heb. vii. The Old ritate 12 Senses Historical, Allegorical, and Moral. · ་ (Eccles. Hier. v. part 1.) is a figure of future glory. In the New Law too the things that were done in our Head are signs of the things that we ought to do ourselves. Therefore in so far as the particulars of the Old Law sig nify those which are of the New Law, this is an allegorical sense, but in so far as all that was done in Christ, or in those things which represent Christ, is significant of what we ourselves ought to do, it is a moral sense; and so far as they signify the things that are in eternal glory, it is an anagogical or celestial sense. And since the literal sense is that which the Author intends, but the Author of Holy Scripture is God, Who comprehends all things at once in His intelligence, it is not in consistent,' as St. Augustine says in his Confessions, b. xii. (see caps. 18, 19, 20, 24, 31.) that there should be more meanings than one, even according to the literal sense, in one and the same letter of Holy Writ.'" The word ' anagogical' is used by Origen merely to describe a mystical sense in general, here it expresses a sense that belongs to the state and condition of things in heaven. According to the distinction made by our Lord, iii. 12. "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shalive believe if I tell you of heavenly things "The earthly things being the circumstances of the Christian covenant, as the heavenly things roths concerning God and things in heaven: The Rationale of this manifold sense of Scripture is contained in this account of Origen. "Which things being so, we have to give a sketch of the many lines of the interpretation of the Scriptures as they appear to us. And first it must be shewn how that the scope and aim of the Spirit, Which in God's Providence through the Word, Which was in the beginning with God, enlightened the ministers of truth, the Prophets and Apostles, was fist and foremost that which concerned the ineffable mysteries of things relating to men; and by men I here mean, souls making use of bodies; that whosoever is fitted to be instructed, by searching diligently and applying himself through the words to the inmost depth of the sense, inay be made partaker of all the determinations of His counsel. But with reference to things concerning the souls of men, which cannot otherwise obtain perfection than by the richness and wisdom of the truth concerning God, that is necessarily set in the first order, which concerns God and His only-begotten Son; what sort of nature He is of, and in what way He is the Son of God, and what are the causes of His having descended even so far as to human Flesh, and to have entirely taken Man on Himself; and what is His working and toward whom, and when it takes place, and of necessity, as concerning kindred subjects, about the other rational creatures also, both those diviner ones, and those that are fallen from their blessed estate, and the causes of this their fall, it behoved that a place should be assigned in the words of divine instruction; and about the difference of souls, and whence these differences have arisen, and what the world is, and wherefore it came to subsist; and further, whence that great and exceeding wickedness is which is spread over the earth, and whether not only on earth, but elsewhere also, it is needful for us to learn. All these same and the like being present to the Spirit that illumines the souls of the holy servants of the truth, it was a secondary aim, for the sake of those that could not undergo the pains required for finding out these things, to hide the revelation concerning the aforementioned in terms presenting a record giving an account of the works of creation that are objects of sense, and the creation of men, and those that were begotten in succession from those that were first up to a great umber and in other historical accounts relating the deeds of the righteous, and the sins of these same e at any time forasmuch as they were but men, u the evil deeds, and bad passions, and selfish outrages of lawless and ungodly inen. And in a most marvellous manner, by the history of wars, and of the conquerors and the conquered, certain particulars of ineffable things are revealed to those that are able to prove these mysteries; and still more wonderfully, through the written delivery of the law, the laws of truth are prophetically delivered; all being written down in sequence with a power truly worthy of the Divine wisdom. For it was designed to make the very clothing of soiritual things, I mean the bodily portion of the Scriptures, not profitless in many, but calculated to better the generality of men, in proportion as they comprebend it." Origen de Princ. 1. iv. c. 14. Origen's theory is more fully brought out and exhibited by his definition of these beings for whom H. S. was given σας χρωμένας ψυχάς σώμασιν, + souls Senses Historical, Allegorical, and Moral. using bodies,' which both illustrates the relative importance of the primary and secondary uses of Scripture, together with their connection, and also accounts for the same in some degree. All Scripture was held to be written, ab iatus,' from the inward mystery, and not 13 ab extra,' with a mystical sense put into it. In every case the historical account is the rind or coating, the mystical meaning the essence of Holy Scripture, not the former the essential truth, containing a mystical sense. THE FIRST PART. THE PREFACE, Wherein he in few words goes through the particulars, which are to be laid open in the course of the entire work. 1. It is often a question with many persons, who should be held for the writer of the Book of the Blessed Job; and some indeed conjecture that Moses was the author of this work, others, some one of the Prophets. For because it is Gen. 36, related in the Book of Genesis that Jobab sprung from the stock of Esau, and that he succeeded 'Bale the son of Beor E. V. upon the throne, they have inferred that this Blessed Job 33. 1 Bela lived long before the times of Moses, evidently from ignorance of the manner of Holy Writ, which in the earlier parts is wont to touch slightly upon events that are not to follow till long afterwards, when the object is to proceed without delay to particularize other events with greater exactness. Whence it happens, that in that case likewise it is mentioned of Jobab, that he was before there arose kings in Israel. Therefore we clearly see that He never could have lived before the Law, who is marked out as having lived during the time of the Judges of Israel; which being little attended to by some, they suppose that Moses was the writer of his acts, as placi~ But vide him long before, so that in effect the self-same person who w. able to deliver the precepts of the Law for our instructio should be supposed also to have commended to us example of virtue derived from the life of a man that was a Genti But some, as has been said, suppose some one of t Prophets to have been the Author of this work, maintainin that no man could have knowledge of those words of Go which have such deep mystery, save he whose mind wa raised to things above by the spirit of Prophecy. licet. Potuit. It is difficult to see whether in this word and videlicet he means to imply an unfitness that it should be so. §. 4. might lead one to think that he does, as he makes the giving an example from among th Gentiles a farther step, taken afte the Law had been rejected. Such view is not derogatory to the book o Job. |