Chapter 5.—It is a Wretched
Slavery Which Takes the Figurative Expressions of Scripture in a
Literal Sense.
9. But the ambiguities of
metaphorical words, about which I am next to speak, demand no
ordinary care and diligence. In the first place, we must beware
of taking a figurative expression literally. For the saying of
the apostle applies in this case too: “The letter killeth, but
the spirit giveth life.” For when what is said
figuratively is taken as if it were said literally, it is
understood in a carnal manner. And nothing is more fittingly
called the death of the soul than when that in it which raises it
above the brutes, the intelligence namely, is put in subjection to
the flesh by a blind adherence to the letter. For he who follows
the letter takes figurative words as if they were proper, and does
not carry out what is indicated by a proper word into its secondary
signification; but, if he hears of the Sabbath, for example, thinks
of nothing but the one day out of seven which recurs in constant
succession; and when he hears of a sacrifice, does not carry his
thoughts beyond the customary offerings of victims from the flock, and of the fruits of the earth. Now it is surely a miserable slavery of the soul to take signs for things, and to be unable to lift the eye of the mind above what is corporeal and created, that it may drink in eternal light.
Footnotes
