Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 11: Prolegomena (prefaces and canons)
Likewise, Prophets as well as poets often use catachresis, or usurpation of another’s name, e.g. when he who kills a brother is called parricide, a pool (piscina) that has no fishes. So Virgil, Aeneid 7, says: “Or keen they stretch...;” where Servius says “keen,” that is, strong, by catachresis; for keenness (acrimonia) belongs properly to the mind. So the Prophets call “open” what offers no delay to one passing through, although it be closed. So Stephen saw the heavens opened to him, Acts 7:55. So Christ alone is said to have opened the womb of His mother, that is, to have passed through it closed, and leapt forth into the light and the world as if it had been opened. So speak St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, Origen and Theophylact, whom I cited on Exodus 13:1, and so themselves of Christ explain that of Luke 2:23: “Every male opening the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.”
CANON L. The oracles of the Prophets in the several chapters are often different and different, and issued at a new and different time: whence also they have at times different titles, as is plain Isaias 14:28, etc.; 21, verses 11 and 13. Wherefore chapters (nay parts of the same chapter at times) often have no connexion and continuation with each other, nor keep the series of times: but single chapters are single prophecies, and as it were single books dictated and written at different times, which were afterwards collected into one volume. For this cause there is here frequent hysterologia.
CANON LI. The little word “if” with the Hebrews is a mark of swearing, and is an aposiopesis for euphemism, for the sake of good omen, for example: “The Lord liveth if the enemy come,” that is, I swear that the enemy shall not come, and so if he come, let me not be held God or king. It can secondly, without aposiopesis, be taken for “not.” Where note, when after words of swearing follows the word “if,” then “if” turns an affirmative sentence into a negative, and a negative into an affirmative, as Psalm 94:11: “As I swore in my wrath: If they shall enter into my rest,” that is, that they shall not enter. Conversely, “as I have thought, so shall it be,” that is, He swore that as He Himself thought, so it shall be. So Maldonatus on Ezechiel chapter 18, verse 3.
CANON LII. When the Hebrews wish to signify all in some genus, they join the feminine gender to the masculine, “the strong man and the strong woman;” in Hebrew it is, the sustaining man and the sustaining woman; the Septuagint: the strong man and the strong woman; that is all the strong, both men and women, who could defend and sustain the city. So Ecclesiastes 2:8: “I made me singing men and singing women,” that is every kind of musicians. Jeremias 7:34: “I will cause to cease the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride,” that is, all nuptial applause. Like is Isaias 3:1.
CANON LIII. The relative is at times referred not to what is expressed, but to what one silently thinks to himself. As Canticle 1:1: “Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth;” where that “his” refers to “the spouse,” who was not previously expressed, but was deeply fixed in the heart of the spouse. Psalm 86:1: “The foundations thereof are in the holy mountains;” where “thereof” refers to “Jerusalem:” whom, though the Prophet had not named her, he yet turned over in mind. Psalm 113:2: “Judea was made his sanctuary,” namely “God’s,” whose works David was admiring with himself. Lamentations 3:1: “I am the man that see my poverty by the rod of his indignation,” namely “God’s:” for he was turning over His indignation in his mind. John 20:15, Magdalen says to Christ whom she knew not, thinking Him to be the gardener: “Sir, if thou hast taken him hence,” namely “Christ,” in whom she was wholly, and of whom she believed the gardener was thinking.
CANON LIV. The Prophets at times play on the same word taken in contrary senses, as Isaias 29:1: “Woe to Ariel, Ariel;” and verse 2: “And it shall be to me as Ariel,” as if to say Jerusalem, which was ariel, that is lion of God, by plundering other nations, shall be to me as the prey of an ariel, that is, as an ariel of malediction. So the Apostle plays on the word sin: “Him who knew no sin, for us He made sin (that is, a sacrifice for sin),” 2 Corinthians 5:21.
So they take “to bless” for to curse by euphemism, as “Naboth blessed,” that is, cursed, “God,” 3 Kings 21:13. So they take “to sanctify” for to pollute, as Deuteronomy 23:17. So kades, that is holy, is called a sodomite, and kedesha a harlot, as if you said by no means holy:
So “sacer” among the Latins is taken for execrable, as in Horace, Ode 7: “Blood sacred to descendants,” and Virgil, Aeneid 3: “Accursed (sacra, that is execrable) hunger for gold.” So “anathema” is called a gift offered to God, likewise an execrable thing, devoted to death and curses.
Again they play elegantly on the same word by antiphrasis, as if proposing an enigma. So Isaias plays, chapter 26:11: “O Lord, let thy hand be exalted, and let them not see: let them see, and be confounded...” and Osee 1:10: “Ye are not my people: it shall be said to them: Ye are the sons of the living God.” And chapter 2:24: “I will say to that which was not my people: Thou art my people,” or, as the Apostle cites Romans 9:25: “I will call that which was not my people, my people: and her that was not beloved, beloved: and her that had not obtained mercy, one that hath obtained mercy.” So Gentiles and seculars form enigmas elegantly by antiphrasis, such as that of Plato, book 5 On the Laws, and in Athenaeus, book 10 of the Deipnosophists: “A man not a man, seeing and not seeing, struck with a stone not a stone a bird not a bird, sitting on a tree not a tree,” that is, a eunuch with one eye struck with a pumice a bat sitting on an elder.
Such an antiphrastic enigma is the Bolognese one in Francis Schott, century 2, enigma.
Another: Laelia Crispis, neither man nor woman, nor hermaphrodite, nor girl, nor youth, nor old woman, neither harlot nor chaste, but all things:
Taken away neither by hunger, nor sword, nor poison, but by all: neither in heaven nor in waters nor on earth, but everywhere she lies.
Lucius Agatho Priscius, neither husband, nor lover, nor kinsman, neither mourning nor rejoicing nor weeping, [made] this neither mound nor pyramid, nor sepulchre, knows and knows not for whom he has set it. This is a sepulchre having no corpse within, this is a corpse having no sepulchre outside; but the corpse is the same as the sepulchre to itself.
Which many interpret of the soul of man, others of desire, others of the water of clouds, others (and perhaps more truly) of Niobe daughter of Tantalus, who, oppressed by force from grief, is said by the poets to have been turned into stone.
Such also is that of Alexis the Poet: “Neither mortal nor immortal, but having a certain temper of both, so that he lives neither with the part of man nor of God, but is ever born.” This is Sleep.
CANON LV. There is among the Hebrews euphemism: for by honest words they declare a dishonest thing. So “to know a wife” among them signifies the act of marriage: so “water of the feet” they call urine, which is wont to run down to the feet. So Ezechiel chapter 7, verse 17, says: “All knees shall run with water,” that is urine, as if to say: from fear they will wet themselves. So “one making water against the wall,” they call a dog. For the name “dog” among the Hebrews is vile and dishonest, and sounds worst, as 1 Kings 25:34, David says to Abigail: “Unless thou hadst made haste and come to meet me, there had not been left to Nabal, etc., any that pisseth against the wall,”
or I should have left a dog surviving, had you not met me, and appeased me by your soft speech and humility. So “great flesh” Ezechiel 16:26, and “the flesh of asses” Ezechiel 23:20, they call great genitals. So in the same place and often elsewhere the Prophets say, “she divided her feet,” that is, prostituted herself.
CANON LVI. The Prophets, especially Ezechiel and Daniel, delight in enigmas, emblems, proverbs. So Daniel, by the enigma of the tree, chapter 4, describes the empire of Nabuchodonosor. And chapter 2, by the enigma of the four-parted statue he represents the four monarchies, the same he represents by four beasts, chapter 7. Chapter 5, by mane, thecel, phares, he portends the destruction of the king and Babylonian kingdom. Chapter 8, by the emblem of the he-goat fighting and conquering the ram, he foretells the battle and victory of Alexander the Great against Darius. Ezechiel, chapter 1, by the four living creatures and the chariot of the Cherubim paints the magnificence, power and vengeance of God. Chapter 5, by the enigma of the razor shaving hairs and beard, the Chaldeans slaying both the people and the princes of the Jews. Chapter 9, by the sign Thau represents the cross, and the patience of Christ and of the Saints. Chapter 16, by the fornication of a spouse, rebukes the idolatry of Jerusalem. Chapter 17, by the fight of two eagles, sets before the eyes the war of Nabuchodonosor and Pharao. Chapter 19, by lions and lion’s whelps, paints the kingdom and tyranny of Joachaz, Joakim and Sedecias. Chapter 23, by the harlotry of Oolla and Ooliba, describes the idolatry of Samaria and Jerusalem, etc. So chapter 18, verse 2, the Jews say: “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the teeth of the children are set on edge;” that is, the fathers have sinned, the children are punished. So Jeremias chapter 6, verse 29, says of the obstinate Jews: “The bellows have failed, the lead is consumed in the fire, the founder hath melted in vain: for their wicked deeds are not consumed.” Such also is Lamentations 4:7: “Her Nazarites were whiter than snow, purer than milk, more ruddy than the old ivory, fairer than the sapphire.” In such things Isaias also delights, as chapter 1, verse 22: “Thy silver is turned into dross: thy wine is mingled with water.” And chapter 5, verse 18: “Woe to you that draw iniquity with cords of vanity.” And chapter 14, verse 29: “Out of the root of the serpent shall come forth a basilisk, and his seed shall swallow up the bird.” And chapter 16, verse 1: “Send forth, O Lord, the lamb, the ruler of the earth, from Petra of the desert,” [and chapter 18:1] “the land of the cymbal of wings, etc. Go, ye swift angels, to a nation torn in pieces.” And chapter 29, verse 1: “Woe to Ariel, Ariel, the city which David took by storm: and I will compass Ariel with a trench, and it shall be to me as Ariel.”