Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Excerpt from The Pope's Supremacy and the Rock
The more independent and defined of the parts composing the type are distinguished as the members of the figure. Thus, when Christ says, I am the vine, ye are the branches, the vine, or the stock of the vine, which is indicated, constitutes one member, the branches, the other member of the figure.
Interpretation or figures. - TO interpret a metaphor, or, as it is sometimes called in reference to Scripture similitudes, to spiritu alise it, is to refer the members of the type to the corresponding parts of the antitype. For conciseness this is commonly done by merely asserting the identity of the objects compared (although, of course, they are not identical but similar). Thus, Christ, in explain ing the parable of the sower, says, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; the field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom, etc.
As the type and the antitype are only similar in some respects, care must be taken not to stretch the comparison beyond what is obvious in the way of resemblance, else we involve contradictions instead of similitudes. When, for example, a man is compared to a tree, and his works to its fruits, the fruits will not symbolise the works in every respect. Thus, a tree has naturally but one class of fruit, while the moral and immoral acts of men are various in kind or quality. The figure cannot be strained to represent this variety in virtuous and vicious conduct without instituting comparisons be tween things devoid of at least any obvious resemblance, which is a necessary quality of a judicious metaphor.
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