Teaching Christianity
1:46); whether as though he were making an affirmation, so that the only interrogatory part would be A Nazareth? or as though the whole sentence expressed the questioner's doubt, I cannot see how it should be decided, the sense given in each case presenting no obstacle to faith.
7. Ambiguity can also arise over the sound and tone of syllables, and this of course is also a matter of pronunciation. Thus where it is written, Non est absconditum a te os meum, quod fecisti in abscondito[6] (Ps 139:15), it is not immediately clear to the reader whether he should pronounce "os" with a short or long vowel. If he makes it short, one understands the singular from which we get the plural "ossa," bones, while if he makes it long we understand the singular from which comes the plural "ora," mouths. But cases like this are settled by a look at the earlier language, because here in the Greek it has ostoun, not stoma,[7] which shows that very often the popular way of speaking is better for getting across the meaning of things than is literary correctness. I would rather it said, with a common barbarism, Non est absconditum a te "ossum" meum, than that a preference for good Latin should make its meaning less plain.
But sometimes a doubt about the right sound of a syllable can be settled from a word nearby in the same sentence, as in this from the apostle: Quae pradico vobis, sicut praedixi, quoniam qui talia agunt, regnum Dei non possidebunt[8] (Gal 5:21). If he had just said, Quae praedico vobis, and had not added, sicut praedixi, the only thing to do would have been to have recourse to a copy of the earlier language, to find out whether praedico should be pronounced with a short or long second syllable; but now it is plain that the syllable should be lengthened, since he does not say, "sicut praedicavi," but sicut praedixi.
Ambiguities over grammatical construction
4, 8. But besides these instances, similar considerations also apply to ambiguities which are not concerned with phrasing or pronunciation, like this to the Thessalonians: Propterea consolati sumus fratres in vobis[9] (1 Thes 3:7). The doubt is whether it should be "O fratres" or "hos fratres." Neither reading, indeed, is against the faith; but the Greek language does not have the same form for these two cases, and thus a glance at the Greek reveals that it is the vocative, that is, "O fratres." But if the translator had been prepared to say, "propterea consolationem habuimus, fratres, in vobis," he would have been keeping less closely to the words of the original, but there would have been less doubt about the meaning—or at least if he had added "nostri"; practically nobody, after all, could doubt that it was the vocative case, on hearing, Propterea consolati sumus, fratres nostri, in vobis.[10]
But now adding a word like this is rather risky, and only rarely to be permitted.[11] The same sort of thing was done in the passage to the Corinthians, where the apostle says, I die every day by your glory, brothers, which I have in Christ Jesus (1 Cor 15:31). One translator, you see, says, I die every day, "I swear" by your glory, because in the Greek it is clearly an oath without any ambiguity.[12] It is extremely rare, then, and indeed very hard, to find any ambiguity in the literal meaning of words, as far as the books of the divine scriptures are concerned, which cannot be settled either from the context of the word, which indicates the intention of the writers, or from a comparison of different versions, or from an examination of the original language.
Ambiguities in metaphorical language; enslavement to the letter
5, 9. But ambiguities arising from metaphorical language, about which we have to talk from now on, call for no ordinary care and attention. For in the first place, you have to beware of taking a figurative expression literally. And this is where the apostle's words are relevant, The letter kills, but the spirit gives life (2 Cor 3:6). When something that is said figuratively, you see, is taken as though it were meant in its proper literal sense, we are being carnal in our way of thinking. Nor can anything more suitably be called the death of the soul than when that in it too, which surpasses the brute beasts, that is to say its intelligence, subjects itself to the flesh by following the letter.[13]
When you follow the letter, you see, you take in their proper literal sense words that are being used metaphorically, and fail to refer what is signified in this proper sense to the signification of something else; but if, for example, you hear the word "sabbath," and all you understand by it is this one of the seven days which recurs week by week; and when you hear the word "sacrifice," your thoughts do not go beyond what is usually done with victims from the flock and the fruits of the earth. This, precisely, is the wretched slavery of the spirit, treating signs as things, and thus being unable to lift up the eyes of the mind above bodily creatures, to drink in the eternal light.
6, 10. Such slavery, however, in the Jewish people was something different by far from the deadness[14] of the other nations, seeing that the Jews were subjected to temporal things in such a way that in all of them the one God was being brought to their attention. And although they observed the signs of spiritual things[15] as things in their own right, quite unaware of what they should be referred to, it was still second nature to them to suppose that by such a slavery they were pleasing the one God of the universe, whom they could not see. This, the apostle writes, was like being in the custody of a minder of children.[16] And that is why those who clung so stubbornly to such signs could not tolerate the Lord, who made light of them when the time had already come for unveiling their real meaning, and why their leaders piled up charges against him that he cured people on the sabbath, and why the people, in bondage to those signs as though they were the ultimate realities, could not believe that one who refused to take any notice of them, in the way they were observed by the Jews, could be God or could have come from God.
But those of them who came to believe, who formed the first Church in Jerusalem, showed well enough how very useful it had been for them to be kept under that childminder; it meant that the signs which had been imposed on them as slaves for a time had tied the ideas of those who observed them to the worship of the one God who made heaven and earth (Ps 121:2).
Thus because they had been close to spiritual things already (for in those actual temporal and carnal signs and votive offerings, although they were unaware of how they were meant to be understood spiritually, they had at least learned that only the one eternal God was to be honored), they turned out to be so ready for the Holy Spirit that they sold all their possessions, and laid the price at the feet of the apostles (Acts 4:35), to be distributed to the poor; and in this way they dedicated themselves totally to God as a new temple, the earthly image of which, that is the old temple, they used to be enslaved to.
11.[17] It is not written anywhere, after all, that any other Churches did this, and that is because they had not been found to be so near,[18] since they had held images made with hands to be gods.
7, And if ever any of them, as pagans, tried to explain those images as signs, they related them to some creature to be worshiped and honored. But what good does it do me, after all, to be told that some idol of, let us say, Neptune is not to be regarded as a god, but that it represents the whole sea, or even all the other waters that gush forth from springs? As he is described by one of their poets, if I remember rightly, speaking as follows:
Thy brow, O father Neptune, is hoary white With thundering surf, and ever from thy beard Great Ocean flows, and rivers from thy locks Do curl their winding ways.[19]
This little shell, this pod is shaking and rattling its little stones in a sweet-tasting husk; but it is the food of pigs, not of men. Those who know the gospel will know what I am saying.[20]
So what use is it to me that the idol of Neptune is given that symbolic meaning, except perhaps to warn me off worshiping either of them? For me, after all, neither any statue at all, nor the entire sea, is God. Still, I must admit that those who regard the works of men as gods are more deeply sunk in falsehood than those who so regard the works of God. We, though, are commanded to love and worship the one God who made all these things, the idols of which the pagans venerate either as gods or as the signs and images of gods. So if taking a sign, which was instituted for a useful purpose, as being the very thing it was established to signify is a form of enslavement to the flesh, how much more so must it be to take the signs of useless things for the things themselves? If you refer them to the things they signify, and oblige your spirit to worship these, you are still nonetheless not ridding yourself of a servile, carnal burden and veil.[21]
Liberation from enslavement to the letter
8, 12. That is why those who were found by Christian liberty to be serving under useful signs were found to be near;[22] and by explaining the signs to which they were subjected, this liberty raised them up to the substantive realities, the things they were signs of, and so set them free. It was from these people that the Churches of the holy Israelites were formed. As for those whom it found serving under useless signs, it cut out not only their slave labor under such signs, but also the signs themselves and got rid of them all, so that the nations might be converted from the corruption of a multitude of fake gods, which scripture often and rightly calls fornication, to the worship of the one God, and this, not by enslaving themselves now to those useful signs, but rather by exercising their minds in the spiritual understanding of them.
9, 13. Those, you see, who practice or venerate some kind of thing which is a significant sign, unaware of what it signifies, are enslaved under signs, while those who either carry out or venerate useful signs established by God, fully understanding their force and significance, are not in fact venerating what can be seen and passes away, but rather that reality to which all such things are to be referred. Such people are spiritual and free even during the time of slavery, in which it is not yet opportune for carnal spirits to have those signs openly explained to them, because they still need to be broken in under their yoke. Such spiritual people, however, were the patriarchs and prophets, and all those in the people of Israel through whose ministry the Holy Spirit has provided us with the help and the consolation of the scriptures themselves.
In this time, though, after the clearest indication of our freedom has shone upon us in the resurrection of our Lord, we are no longer burdened with the heavy duty of carrying out even those signs whose meaning we now understand. But the Lord himself and the discipline of the apostles has handed down to us just a few signs instead of many, and these so easy to perform, and so awesome to understand, and so pure and chaste to celebrate, such as the sacrament of baptism, and the celebration of the Lord's body and blood. When people receive these, they have been so instructed that they can recognize to what sublime realities they are to be referred, and so they venerate them in a spirit not of carnal