Commentaria in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 11: Prolegomena (prefaces and canons)
The causes are two: the first, because prophecy, since it is secret and obscure, delights in an arcane and obscure style; the second, because the ancient sages handed down their wisdom through enigmas, to whet in disciples the desire and study of it. So the Egyptians concealed their dogmas, and handed them down by hieroglyphic figures. So the Sophist of the Egyptian king Nectenabo proposed this enigma to Aesop: “There is,” he said, “a great temple, and in it a column having twelve cities, each of which is sustained by thirty beams, and these beams women go round.” To whom Aesop: “The temple,” he said, “is the world, the column the year, the cities the months, the beams the days, and the women themselves the two, day and night.” Moreover Aesop himself ingeniously and wittily composed by fables, that is emblems, his mythology, that is moral Philosophy. It was the dogma of Crates of Thebes, as Plutarch testifies: “The pot is not to be increased on account of the lentil, lest we be thrown into sedition,” that is, the body is not to be stuffed or burdened with foods, lest it be brought into disturbance and flux. Amphion in Pacuvius proposed this enigma of the tortoise: “Four-footed, house-carrier, slow-walking, rustic, lowly, rough, short-headed, serpent-necked, grim to look at, disemboweled, lifeless with a living sound.” Such is that of the physician commanding a sick man to take “the earth-born, herb-walking, house-carrying, bloodless,” that is, a snail. Such was the oracle given to Philip: “Thou shalt conquer all things, if the weapons be of silver.” For it behooved him to capture cities with silver spears, that is, money, the garrisons being bribed with silver.
Such was that of Virgil in the Bucolics, eclogue 3, by which he asserted that he had fixed a cross for the Grammarians:
“Tell me in what lands grow flowers inscribed with the names of kings.”
Which they commonly interpret of the hyacinth flower: of which a double fable is told, namely of Hyacinthus the Oebalian youth loved by Apollo, and of Ajax the Telamonian, both of whom are said to have been turned into the same flower: in which flower indeed that mournful Greek cry, ai, ai, is found formed and inscribed by nature. Our John Cerda however expounds this enigma of Augustus Caesar, whose effigy and name were struck on coins among flowers; and hence it seems the name of florins in coinage arose. Such is this of the same:
“Tell me in what lands, and thou shalt be to me great Apollo,”
“the space of heaven lies open no more than three ells.”
Which they interpret of a well made at Syene, which the Mathematicians dug for the purpose of indicating the solstice; for at that time the sun is said nowhere to bend shadows there. Such too was the Sphinx’s enigma about man: “In the morning four-footed, at noon two-footed, in the evening three-footed.” And this is the cause why Scripture at times by mimesis cites the myths, apologues and fables of the Gentiles, as the fable of the Titans, Judith 16:8, the horn of Amalthea, Job 42:14 according to the Septuagint, the fable of the Centaurs, Isaias 34:14, as I shall say more fully there.
CANON LVII. In like manner they use symbols, and symbolic figures, ideas and phrases, especially in divine things. The same did the ancient Theologians of the Gentiles, and the divine, as they themselves held, lawgivers, such as Zoroaster, Zamolxis, Zaleucus, Dardanus, Charondas, Numa. The same did the impostor Mahomet in his Alcoran. The same did Christ teaching by parables and symbols, Matthew chapter 13, verse 34. For as Julian Caesar, impious though he was, says holily: “The divine nature loves to be hidden, and does not suffer its hidden substance to enter into polluted ears by naked words.” And as Macrobius says: God, as He has withdrawn the understanding of Himself from the vulgar senses of men by a varied covering and veil of things, so has willed that His secrets be treated by the prudent through secrets, namely that, covered with figures and wrappings, they may be set apart from vileness and obtain due veneration. Wherefore they say that the philosopher Numenius suffered the offence of the deity because by interpreting he had divulged the Eleusinian rites. For he saw in sleep the goddesses themselves in the garb of harlots, standing in a brothel; and wondering what this was and asking, it was answered him that the goddesses themselves, in anger, had been dragged by him by force from the very shrine of chastity, and everywhere prostituted by him. Theodectes was struck blind in the eyes, Theopompus in mind, because they had published and profaned in song certain sayings of Moses and holy Scripture, writes Aristeas. Wherefore St. Dionysius calls these sacred things symbols, and for the same cause by some Theologians there is said to be a threefold Theology, symbolic, mystical and telestic. Where note: St. Dionysius, book On the Divine Names, and book On Mystical Theology, St. Thomas, part 1, Questions 12 and 13, and Scholastics everywhere teach that God and divine things are known by us in three ways. First, by the way of ascent from creatures to the Creator, as to their origin and author. For, as the Apostle says, Romans 1:20: “The invisible things of him (God), from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made: his eternal power also, and divinity.” Second, by the way of negation, for example by thinking and saying: God is not a stone, not heaven, not man, not angel, but essence and majesty transcending all these infinitely, of which St. Dionysius, chapters 3 and 4 of the Celestial Hierarchy. Third, by corporeal figures and symbols, which represent to us corporeally His incorporeal nature, as by shadow and image. This third way is easier and sweeter; for more sweetly and pleasantly we behold God through symbols as in a mirror. Wherefore in this third way Scripture, and especially the Prophets, more frequently proceed.
Of the Gentiles Pythagoras excelled in this matter, who delivered and wrote his golden doctrines concerning God, and morals and virtues, by symbols, and that he learned them from Moses and the Prophets, teach Eusebius, book 10 of the Preparation of the Gospel, chapter 2; Theodoret, book 2 On Principles; Origen, book 1 Against Celsus; St. Ambrose, book 3, epistle 90 to Irenaeus; Clement of Alexandria, book 1 of the Stromata; Josephus, book 1 Against Apion; Lilius Gyraldus in the preface to the Symbols of Pythagoras, and Hermippus openly shows, book 1 On Pythagoras: whence also some have held that Pythagoras was circumcised, nay was the same as the Prophet Ezechiel, who abounds in symbols, as I shall show in the preface on Ezechiel. Following him not only the Greeks but the Romans too had their symbols, among which the poppy was the symbol of fertility and of the city; the quince of marriage, Adon of fruits, Father Liber of liberty, Atys of flowers, foam of generation, the Satyr of lust, according to Eusebius and Plutarch. Moreover the Pythagorean symbols were threefold: first, theological and divine; second, ethical; third, political. The divine, or concerning God, were chiefly these.
First: “Do not heap up cypress wood,” that is, what is consecrated to God do not turn to your own uses: for of cypress was made the sceptre of Jove, says Hermippus. Second: “Do not stir fire with a sword,” that is, do not curse God with the sharpness of the tongue. So some, though others otherwise, and perhaps better, of which presently. Third: “Do not engrave the image of God on a ring,” that is, do not easily reveal and divulge opinion and discourse about God, lest it pass into contempt. So Cyril; or, as Gyraldus, do not have the effigy and memory of God in delights, or in the open. Fourth: “Feed a cock, but do not sacrifice it,” that is, support soldiers who may guard the city, but do not mix them with sacred things. Fifth: “Do not cut your nails at sacrifice,” that is, in sacred things do not occupy yourself with superfluous or sordid matters. Sixth: “Rising, fold up the bedclothes,” that is, in the morning lifting yourself to contemplation of divine things, abandon corporeal senses. Seventh: “Without the command of the commander (that is, of God) do not depart from your station, that is, life,” that is, do not rashly or prodigally lose life. Eighth: “From unpruned vines make no libation to the gods,” that is, offer your actions and victims pure, that is pruned and purged, to God; for God hates everything impure. Ninth: “Perform sacred things with bare feet,” that is, with purified affections (for feet are the symbol of these) perform the sacred rite. Tenth: “When about to adore, sit,” that is, when you pray, be of pacified and tranquil mind, that you may gather and pour yourself wholly into God. Eleventh: “When you have come into the temple, adore, and do nothing else meanwhile.” Twelfth: “Do not enter a temple by the way, apart from purpose,” that is, do not mix sacred and divine things with profane and irreligious. Thirteenth: “Do not speak of divine things without light,” that is, do not speak of God without heavenly illumination, namely without faith and divine wisdom. Fourteenth: “When it thunders, touch the earth,” that is, when signs of God’s anger are at hand, humble yourself, mindful of your origin, and so beseech God. Fifteenth: “Restrain the tongue, imitating God: for he is nearest to God who knows how to be silent by reason.” Whence Pythagoras first bade his disciples be silent for five years. Sixteenth: “Among other things the most perfect trinity is to be honored.” Pythagoras seems to have drawn from the Egyptians and Hebrews some slight knowledge of the Most Holy Trinity, or at least thought the number three, as the first perfect, to be consecrated to God. For Theodoret truly said, book 2 On Principles: “Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, Plato gathered certain enigmas about God from the Egyptians and Hebrews.”