{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050779.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050779.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050779.htm","text":"Chapter 23 [XVI.]\u2014Figurative Speech Must Not Be Taken Literally.\n\u201cIn short,\u201d you say, \u201cmembers are in this parable ascribed to the soul, as if it were really a body.\u201d You will have it, that \u201cby the eye the whole head is understood,\u201d because it is said, that \u201che lifted up his eyes.\u201d Again you say, that \u201cby tongues are meant jaws, and by finger the hand,\u201d because it is said, \u201cSend Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue.\u201d 2489 And yet to save yourself from the inconsistency of ascribing corporeal qualities to God, you say that \u201cby these terms must be understood incorporeal functions and powers;\u201d because with the greatest propriety you insist on it, that God is not corporeal. What is the reason, therefore, that the names of these limbs do not argue corporeity in God, although they do in the case of the soul? Is it that these terms must be understood literally when spoken of the creature, and only metaphorically and figuratively when predicated of the Creator? Then you will have to give us wings of literal bodily substance, since it is not the Creator, but only a human creature, who said, \u201cIf I should take my wings like a dove.\u201d 2490 Moreover, if the rich man of the parable had a bodily tongue, on the ground of his exclaiming, \u201cLet him cool my tongue,\u201d it would look very much as if our tongue, even while we are in the flesh, itself possessed material hands, because it is written, \u201cDeath and life are in the hands of the tongue.\u201d 2491 I suppose it is even to yourself self-evident, that sin is neither a creature nor a bodily substance; why, then, has it a face? For do you not hear the psalmist say, \u201cThere is no peace in my bones, in the face of my sins\u201d? 2492\nAugustin\u2019s reading of Ps. cxxxix. 9.\n364:2491\nIn manibus lingu\u00e6= the Hebrew phrase \u05d1\u05b0\u05bc\u05d9\u05b7\u05d3 \u05dc\u05b8\u05e9\u05b9\u05c1\u05d5\u05df, Prov. xviii. 21.\n364:2492\nPs. xxxviii. 3, \u05de\u05b4\u05e4\u05b0\u05bc\u05e0\u05b5\u05d9 \u05d7\u05b7\u05d8\u05b8\u05bc\u05d0\u05ea\u05b4\u05d9.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise on the...","type":"page"}