Didascalicon, Book VI: how Scripture is to be read
Chapter X. On the sense
Of senses, one is congruous, another incongruous. Of the incongruous, one is incredible, another impossible, another absurd, another false. Many such you will find in the Scriptures, as that: They have devoured Jacob (Ps. 78). And that: Under him they stoop that bear up the world (Job 9). And that: My soul hath chosen hanging (Job 7); and many others. There are certain places in the divine Scripture where, although the signification of the words is open, yet no sense seems to be present, either because of an unusual manner of speaking or because of some circumstance which hinders the understanding of the readers. As is, for example, what Isaias says: And seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying: We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel; only let us be called by thy name, take away our reproach (Isa. 4). The words are plain and open. You understand well enough: Seven women shall take hold of one man; you understand: We will eat our own bread; you understand: We will wear our own apparel; you understand: Only let us be called by thy name; you understand: Take away our reproach. But perhaps what this whole together wishes to signify one cannot understand. What the prophet meant to say, whether he promised good or threatened evil, you do not know. Hence it happens that you believe it is to be understood only spiritually, because how it is said according to the letter you do not see. You will say, therefore, that the seven women are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, which shall take hold of one man, that is Christ, in whom it pleased all the fullness of grace to dwell, because he alone received the Holy Spirit without measure. He alone takes away their reproach, that they may find in whom to rest; no other being alive, since they were asking for the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Behold, you have interpreted spiritually, and you do not understand what it is to say according to the letter. Yet the prophet could by these words signify something also according to the letter. For since he had above spoken of the intention of the transgressing people, he now adds that so great a slaughter is to come upon the same people, and the race of men is to be so destroyed, that scarcely seven women find one man, whereas now one woman is wont to have one. And whereas women are now wont to be asked by men, then, the custom being reversed, the women will ask the men. And lest perhaps one man fear to take seven women at once, having nothing wherewith to feed and clothe them, they say to him: We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel; you need not be anxious about us: Only let us be called by thy name; that you may be called our husband, and be so: lest, I say, we be rejected as barren and die without seed, which at that time was a great reproach. And this is what they say: Take away our reproach. Many such things you will find in the Scriptures, especially in the Old Testament, said according to the idiom of that language, which, though open there, seem to signify nothing among us.