Commentaria in Exodum
I say then that the sciniphs were gnats (the Greek Etymologicum says, knips is a kind of gnat), and their infinite swarms (so as, like a spread cloud, to overshadow all Egypt, says Philo), which both pierced bodies with barbed stings, and, as Philo says, invaded nostrils and ears, and flew into the eyes. Wherefore this animal, though most minute, is yet most troublesome. Whence St. James of Nisibis, against Sapor king of the Persians, besieging Nisibis, hurling a curse of sciniphs, straightway scattered with them his horses and elephants, Theodoret testifies in the Philotheus.
Hence Albert the Great, book 16 On Animals, says that sciniphs are in body worms, but in head and wings flies, have a sting in the mouth with which they prick and suck, are born in marshy places, and pursue the breath of living things, but most of all of men. But these Mosaic ones were fiercer, and as it were miraculous: nor did they fly circling in the air, as gnats do, but attacked men and beasts.
Tropologically, sciniphs are the dialectical sophisms of heretics, which with minute and subtle stings of words and arguments pierce souls, and so craftily circumvent that the deceived neither sees nor understands. So Origen and Diogenes rightly blunted a sophist: for when the latter by his quibbles concluded that Diogenes had horns, Diogenes, touching his forehead and temples with his hand, said: Yet I do not see them. To another reasoning thus: What I am, thou art not: I am a man, therefore thou art not a man, he answered: Begin from me, and thou wilt conclude rightly: What Diogenes is, this the sophist is not: Diogenes is a man; therefore the sophist is not a man. Wherefore Ariston rightly said that the quibbles of dialecticians are like spiders’ webs, which have very much art, very little use.
St. Augustine, in On the Agreement of the ten precepts with the ten plagues, teaches that this plague is opposed to the third precept, by which we are commanded to sanctify the sabbath, that is, to have rest of mind: for sciniphs signify restless, contentious and quarrelsome men, who disturb their own and others’ peace.
18. AND THE MAGICIANS DID IN LIKE MANNER,—“They did,” that is, they tried to do by their enchantments. So St. Augustine.
AND THEY COULD NOT.—Why could the magicians, who had made frogs and greater things, not produce little sciniphs? The Hebrews in Lyranus answer that the cause was that demons cannot produce an animal smaller than a barley-corn, and sciniphs are smaller. But these are trifles: for although by art the greatest can sometimes be made, not the smallest, yet by nature and by natural causes (through which demons act) smaller and viler animals are more easily made than greater: for these need more things, as experience shows. Secondly, Rupert thinks the magicians made sciniphs, but not true ones, that is, not such as would sting and be barbed. But whence did Rupert learn this? nay it contradicts Scripture, which simply says they could not make sciniphs. Thirdly, Cajetan gives this cause, that those incantations were not appropriate to such an effect, namely to producing sciniphs: for it is certain that demons can produce sciniphs. But there is no doubt that the demon, who here put forth all his force against Moses, would have suggested to his magicians proper and suitable incantations.
I say then that the demons were hindered by God from being able to make sciniphs; for the magicians themselves confess this, saying: “This is the finger of God”; and that thus the power of God and the weakness of demons might appear the more, and that not the demon, but God is to be feared by us, who restrains the strength of the demon so that he cannot hurt even in small things unless God permit him. Finally, here the lying magicians and demons are convicted of impotence; and it was plain to all that the wonders they had done before were not true miracles, and that they were overcome and laid low by Moses; and consequently that Moses is the true Prophet and servant of the true God, but the magicians themselves are servants of the demon.
St. Augustine gives an allegorical cause, Quest. 25 on Exodus: In the third plague, of sciniphs, he says, the magicians failed, to signify that the Philosophers of the Gentiles did not recognize the mystery of the most holy Trinity. For although Plato and others have not been silent about the Father and the Son, yet they did not recognize the Holy Ghost, who is the finger of God.
Morally, learn hence, if thou strongly and constantly resist the demon, how thou renderest him most weak, so that he cannot make even a sciniph.
19. THIS IS THE FINGER OF GOD,—who, namely, stands by Moses and helps him, but assails and restrains us, and forces us to yield to him. This God, and Moses, extort from enemies, even unwilling, a true confession of the true signs of Moses and flowing from God.
Thou wilt ask, what does the finger signify here? Some answer that the finger signifies the plague which God inflicted by a light motion, and as it were with His finger: and as man has ten fingers, so there were ten plagues of Egypt; whence the Chaldee renders, this is a plague from the face of God.
Secondly and more aptly, the finger of God is the power of God, His virtue and operation; for by the arm and fingers, which are the instruments of action, the Hebrews signify power and action. For although in God there is one operative virtue, yet the same is manifold and multiform by reason of many effects, whence it is called finger or fingers. Hence Isaias 40 says that God weighs the mass of the earth with three fingers, and Psalm 8: “I will behold thy heavens, the works of thy fingers”; so Rupert, Cajetan, Lyranus, Lipomanus. Again “of God” signifies immense power, as if to say: The virtue by which Moses works is exceptional and insuperable; for so are called the mountains of God, the cedars of God, that is, the greatest.
Mystically, according to the mind not of the magicians but of God, the finger of God is the Holy Ghost: for first, as the finger from the arm and hand, so the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son. Secondly, as there are many fingers, so there are many gifts of the Holy Ghost. Thirdly, there are as many fingers of the right hand as of the left, because with equal fortitude and grace of the Holy Ghost we need to bear prosperity and adversity. So St. Augustine, Jerome and Nyssen. Hence that in Luke chap. 11, verse 20, Christ is said to cast out devils by the finger of God, Matthew chap. 12, verse 28, explains, saying that He does it by the Spirit of God.
Note.—Lyranus wrongly understands by God here a superior demon, who by magic hindered the working of the magicians and the lower demons. For if, he says, the magicians had known that the true God was with Moses, they would not have dared to resist him further: but they did resist him afterwards, chap. 9, verse 11. But this is against all Interpreters, and against the plain words of Scripture. Nor is it strange that the magicians afterwards returned to their disposition and resisted Moses. For so Pharao, from time to time repenting, soon returned to his disposition. Add, as demons resist God though they know Him, so also resist the magicians and other greatest sinners.
AND PHARAO’S HEART WAS HARDENED.—Both because the magicians said they could and knew how to do like things to Moses, and would do them were they not hindered by God; and also because he had seen that they had already done greater things.
21. I WILL SEND IN UPON THEE, ETC. ALL KIND OF FLIES.—The Hebrew is arob, which, if you look at the root, signifies mixed or miscellaneous, which some restrict to wild beasts, as though God in this fourth plague sent upon the Egyptians mixed kinds of various beasts. So Josephus. Whence the Chaldee renders, a mixture of noxious beasts; Pagninus, every kind of wild beasts; R. Solomon, a crowd of serpents and scorpions; Aben Ezra, an inroad of lions, and leopards, and wolves. Better St. Jerome, the Septuagint and Aquila interpret arob a medley of flies, or a crowd of various flies: for Aquila renders pammyian, that is, a fly of every kind; the Septuagint also render kynomyian, that is, the common fly, namely every kind of flies. Whence the Latin Interpreter, retaining the Greek name cenomyia (for so it must be read with the Romans, not cynomyia) renders Psalm 77:45, and Psalm 104:31. Whence St. Jerome, epist. to Sunia and Fretela, thinks it is wrongly read in the Septuagint kynomyian with y, that is, dog-fly, for koinomyian, that is, common fly; yet Origen, Augustine and Theodoret read kynomyian, and Philo also, who says it is so called from two most shameless animals, namely the dog and the fly, as if to say Moses: This fly was like dogs most shameless, most daring, most biting. So the Egyptians, indicating impudence, painted a fly, which, though often driven away, yet again and again returns shamelessly. So Horus Apollo, book 1, Hierogl. 48.