Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 11: Prolegomena (prefaces and canons)
The first is that it may appear to be prophecy, not an ordered narration or history: whence in it, as in a variegated cloak interwoven with gold, they often cut the thread of history, that they may attach and interweave Christ to the history. So St. Jerome on Osee, chapter 1. The second is that the Prophets, elevated by prophetic and divine light, beheld all things (which to us seem remote and far apart) as it were small beneath them, present and conjoined, as in truth they are if compared with the eternity of God (in which the Prophets saw them). So St. Benedict, raised to God, saw the whole world gathered as in a little globe, as St. Gregory narrates, Dialogues 2, chapter 35. The third, because, as St. Chrysostom says, it is the custom of the Prophets to join prophecies of diverse times, that from what they themselves, the hearers, or their successors saw fulfilled, they might also believe what is deferred to a later time, for example concerning Christ and the Church to be fulfilled. St. Jerome delivers this canon at the beginning of the Commentary on Nahum chapter 2: “Hence,” he says, “the Prophets are most of all obscure, because suddenly, while one thing is being done, the person is changed to another;” and in chapter 1 of Malachias he fixes this canon: “The Prophets weave the prediction of future things so as not to desert the present time: for they mingle the speech of both, and on this occasion foretell the felicity of Christ.” See Driedo, book 3 On the Dogmas of the Church, chapter 5, tract 2. Frequent therefore, says St. Cyril on Isaias chapter 16, verses 3 and 4, among the Prophets are metabases, or transitions, and that to veil the mysteries.
Here however note that the Prophets make these metabases not unseasonably, nor abruptly, but fitly, on a congruous occasion, and with a gentle and soft transition, especially when the history was a type of Christ or of the Church. So Isaias, chapter 7, from the liberation of the Jews and of Achaz from the hand of Rasin king of Syria and Phacee king of Samaria, suddenly passes to the childbearing of the Virgin, and the birth of Emmanuel, and the liberation of men from the power of the devil through Christ, of which that was a type. So often they mingle the devastation of a city (as the allegory of the letter) with the destruction of the world, and the day of judgment, of which that was the mirror and prelude. So St. Jerome on Osee, chapter 1.
Hence again, when some shadow of the Messias shows itself, or something that can excite His memory, the Prophet is aroused, and is rapt with great affection toward Him, and unfolds Him lying hid in that figure, salutes Him, and sets Him forth to all to be recognized. Then, as from stupor and ecstasy, he recovers himself, and returns to the narration begun.
And so, occasion given, the Prophet suddenly, as by a sigh, flies away to Christ, as to the mark, his love and delight, and soon returns to the history or the matter begun. Examples are in Isaias 16:1, where, when he was foretelling the destruction of Moab by the Chaldeans, foreseeing that Christ was to be born from Moab through Ruth the Moabitess, he suddenly flies to Him, saying: “Send forth, O Lord, the lamb, the ruler of the earth, from Petra of the desert, to the mount of the daughter of Sion;” and soon after this his sigh, inserted as it were by parenthesis, he returns to foretell the ruin of Moab. So Isaias, chapter 45, prophesying of Cyrus liberator of the Hebrews from Babylon, foreseeing that Cyrus would be a type of Christ the redeemer of the world, is soon rapt to Him, and says verse 8: “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened, and bud forth a saviour.” Then immediately returns to Cyrus and the Jews. So Jacob blessing his son Dan, and foreseeing that Antichrist would be born from him, sighs to Christ his conqueror, saying: “I will look for thy salvation, O Lord,” Genesis 49:18. So Zacharias, chapter 13, verse 7, when a thin shadow of Christ the shepherd had gone before, flies to Christ, saying: “Arise, O sword, against my shepherd, etc. Strike the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.” So lovers are wont, on seeing an image or a thing that refreshes the memory of the beloved, soon to think of him, speak of him, pant after him. For this is the nature of love.
CANON V. It is often doubtful whether the Prophets speak of the type or of the antitype: that is, whether of the history, or of the allegory signified through the history. To distinguish this, observe this double canon. The first is: when the Prophets announce or foretell something of Sion, of the Jews, of Jerusalem, of Cyrus, of Zorobabel, etc., if the words have nothing contrary to sound doctrine of faith or morals, and if all cohere rightly with what goes before and follows; then they are to be taken properly of those very persons as they sound, and this is the literal sense. So St. Augustine, book 3 On Christian Doctrine, on Isaias, and commenting everywhere on Isaias: where he first delivers and pursues the literal sense of Sion and the Jews, then the mystical of Christ and the Church, or the tropological for the shaping of morals. But if the promises, or the things said by the Prophets, are greater than can suit Jerusalem, the Jews, Cyrus, etc., then it is certain that they do not speak literally of these, but of the antitype: by Jerusalem they understand not the earthly but the spiritual, that is, the Church, which the earthly figured. So St. Jerome on Isaias, chapter 30.
than of a swine. Again Act 6: “The Sicilians,” he says, “cursed the Priest, who had left so worthless a Verres.” For C. Sacerdos the praetor, leaving Sicily, had left Verres as his successor: and the sacerdos, that is, the sacrificer, left a verres, that is, a sow, a victim, which he did not sacrifice. Again: “For when Verres was made praetor, who, having risen auspiciously from Chelidon, got by lot the city province.” He plays on the word “Chelidon:” for so was called the harlot of Verres, who transacted everything in his praetorship: and from the flight and twittering of the Chelidon, that is, the swallow, new praetors took auguries and auspices of their office.
Why then cannot the Holy Spirit embrace in one conception and utterance the sign and the signified, type and antitype? So in 2 Kings 7:12, God speaks of Solomon and promises him many good things: but adds certain things which fit him only by hyperbole, but Christ, who is the true Solomon, properly and adequately to the letter. So Isaias 14 describes the fall of Baltasar, the last king of the Chaldeans, through the figure of the fall of Lucifer. For he was as it were another Lucifer. So Ezechiel 28:14 the king of Tyre is described as it were another Cherub. Where there are many things which properly fit only Baltasar and the king of Tyre; yet some are interwoven which fit more the type, that is, Lucifer and the Cherubim; as that which is said: “Thou saidst: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, etc., I will be like the most High.” Wherefore this, as other like places, is as it were a parable, in which the literal sense is double: first of the parable itself, second of the thing signified by the parable: where certain things fit the parable properly, certain hyperbolically or figuratively only: while these very things properly belong to the thing signified by the parable: as on the contrary those which properly fit the parable sometimes belong only figuratively to the thing signified by it.
Again, the Prophets, sometimes rising gradually from the type to the antitype (e.g., from Cyrus to Christ, from Sion to the Church), at first embrace both in the literal sense. Soon, going on, they cling literally in their ascent, namely in the antitype, alluding only to the type; at last they return to the type.
The second is: the Prophets sometimes embrace in the literal sense at once the thing which the words properly signify, and at once the allegory which that thing represents: and then the literal sense is double, the former as it were historical, the latter as it were prophetic. So ingenious youths often play on names: You are a Philosopher, and at once with flat and great feet; for hence he was called Plato. You have long nostrils, and are at once curious and sagacious; you are well-nosed as well as nosy. So Cicero plays, Act 3 against Verres: “Men said it was not to be wondered at that the verrine broth [or law] was so bad.” For Verres means both a man and a swine; and jus both civil law and broth. Wherefore it is difficult to judge whether they intend one literally and only allude to the other; or whether they wish to signify both literally. Wherefore this must be skilfully investigated and distinguished from the scope, from the phrase, from the majesty of the matter spoken of, from the argument, and from other circumstances. Whence Francis Forerius on Isaias 45:8: “Whenever,” he says, “the Prophets insert into the history of things done or to be done words such as fit the thing figured more aptly than the history: so often hold that way of interpreting to be embraced as from the Holy Spirit which narrates the mystery together with the history.” Thus indeed, so that sometimes they intend to signify both in the literal sense, as I said; but sometimes they signify only one, allude only to the other, or touch it in passing only as a type or shadow; which happens most when the discourse has grown, and now as it were is at its summit. For then the figure or parable put aside, or rather presupposed, they are wholly borne into the thing figured, and depict it graphically and magnificently. This will become most clear in Isaias 14, Ezechiel 28, and other examples in the course itself.