Page:Commentaries of Ishodad of Merv, volume 1.djvu/50

4 and worms and dust, and wolves, and foxes; but God is only named in two ways, either as He is, as, or as Father and Son and Spirit, or below that which He is, as fire, or as being angry or in a rage, or that He repented, or that He was a lion, etc. But afterwards in other ways they speak openly, as this, that in the beginning God created, and the book of the generation of Jesus the Christ, etc.; and mystically, like this,  that they speak a word which is contrary to its own sense; for the Lord created all, it is said, good and evil, and Shall there be evil in the city, and the Lord hath not done it? and the heavens that are over thee shall be brass, and I will make thy horns of iron, and thy hoofs of brass, etc.; or allegorically, doors, it is said, speak, and mountains skip, and trees clap their hands, and Sheol is troubled; but in the reverse order, as Thou truly wert angry, and we have sinned in these things; and they sinned in Sheol, and they have gone astray from the womb; but according to the sense, without a distinct word, although it is mostly in facts, like this, that the fathers say about the Son, that He is the natural Son of the Father, and the Christ, it is said, is in two natures and substances, one Person; and God, it is said, is without beginning and unbegotten, etc. And sometimes the Scriptures speak those things that are not facts, as thus about God, that He repented, and ate and laughed; and about the Christ, that He was sin and a curse, and a stone, and a servant, etc.;  and sometimes they mix ideas, as this, that he put it on her shoulder and the child, and they see voices and lamps, and they gave him water to drink and two cheeses; and sometimes they omit letters, like this, that he made a circuit, and he departed a spirit, that is to say, in the spirit; and threw it prison, that is to say, inside the prison; and the well of Bethlehem, that is to say, which was at  Bethlehem; and he put, it is said, the abysses in storehouses, that is to say, as if in storehouses, etc.; and  sometimes they speak inclusively, as the priests annihilated Shechem,  and behold, Simeon was not a priest; and sometimes for the sake of unity, for no man, it is said, hath ascended to heaven, etc. And sometimes for the sake of inversion. He shall be called, it is said, a Nazarene; and sometimes in the sense of acceptance, He became, it is said, sin and a curse, and the Word became flesh, etc. And sometimes they speak according to the supposition of others, as Behold, it is said, Adam has become like one of us, and Herod was sorry forsooth, and Jesus, it is said, looked on him and loved him, and in the morning, it is said. He hungered; and Jesus was wearied with the toil of the journey, etc. In short, it is necessary that with every word of Scripture we should observe these four things: the occasion,