actual deeds, which appear to the inexperienced to be sinful,
92 ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. [BOOK IH.
crucified." But these are not so numerous, nor placed in such a way as to obscure the sense, aud make it alle^orical_ or enigmatical, which is the kind of expression properly called fi/jurativc. But Tn the saying addressed to Jeremiah, " See,
I have^this day set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down,"^ there is no doubt the whole of the language is figurative, and to be referred to the end I have spoken of.
CUAP. XII. Buh for interpreting those sayings and actions rrhich are ascribed to God and the mints, and which yet seem to the unskilful to be wicked.
18. Those things, again, whether only sayings or whether actual deeds, which appear to the inexperienced to be sinful, aud which are ascribed to God, or to men whose holiness is put before us as an example, are wholly figurative, and the hidden kernel of meaning they contain is to be picked out as food for the nourishment of charity. Xow, whoever uses transitory objects less freely than is the custom of those among whom he lives, is either temperate or superstitious ; whoever, on the other hand, uses them so as to transgress the bounds of the custom of the good men about him, either has a further meaning in what he does, or is sinful. In all such matters it is not the use of the objects, but the lust of the user, that is to blame. Nobody in his sober senses would believe, for example, that when our Lord's feet were anointed by the woman with precious ointment,^ it was for the same purpose for wliich luxurious and profligate men are accustomed to have theirs anointed in tliose banquets which we abhor. For the sweet odour means the good report which is earned by a life of good works ; and the man who wins this, wliile following in the footsteps of Clirist, anoints His feet (so to speak) with the most precious ointment. And so that which in the case of other persons is often a sin, becomes, when ascribed to God or a prophet, tlie sign of some great truth. Keeping company with a harlot, for example, is one thing when it is the result of abandoned manners, another thing when done in the course of his propliecy by the prophet Hosea.^ Because it is a shamefully wicked thing to strip the body naked at a
1 Jci. i. 10. ' Johu xii. 3. ' Hos. i. 2.