Chapter 16.—Rule for Interpreting Commands and Prohibitions.

24.  If the sentence is one of command, either forbidding a crime or vice, or enjoining an act of prudence or benevolence, it is not figurative.  If, however, it seems to enjoin a crime or vice, or to forbid an act of prudence or benevolence, it is figurative.  “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man,” says Christ, “and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.”160    John vi. 53.  This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us.  Scripture says:  “If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink;” and this is beyond doubt a command to do a kindness.  But in what follows, “for in so doing thou shall heap coals of fire on his head,”161    Rom. xii. 20; Prov. xxv. 21, 22. one would think a deed of malevolence was enjoined.  Do not doubt, then, that the expression is figurative; and, while it is possible to interpret it in two ways, one pointing to the doing of an injury, the other to a display of superiority, let charity on the contrary call you back to benevolence, and interpret the coals of fire as the burning groans of penitence by which a man’s pride is cured who bewails that he has been the enemy of one who came to his assistance in distress.  In the same way, when our Lord says, “He who loveth his life shall lose it,”162    John xii. 25.  Comp. Matt. x. 39. we are not to think that He forbids the prudence with which it is a man’s duty to care for his life, but that He says in a figurative sense, “Let him lose his life”—that is, let him destroy and lose that perverted and unnatural use which he now makes of his life, and through which his desires are fixed on temporal things so that he gives no heed to eternal.  It is written:  “Give to the godly man, and help not a sinner.”163    Ecclus. xii. 4.  Comp. Tobit iv. 17.  The latter clause of this sentence seems to forbid benevolence; for it says, “help not a sinner.”  Understand, therefore, that “sinner” is put figuratively for sin, so that it is his sin you are not to help.

CAPUT XVI. Regula de locutionibus praeceptivis.

24. Si praeceptiva locutio est aut flagitium aut facinus vetans, aut utilitatem aut beneficentiam jubens, non est figurata. Si autem flagitium aut facinus videtur jubere, aut utilitatem aut beneficentiam vetare, figurata est. Nisi manducaveritis, inquit, carnem filii hominis, et sanguinem biberitis, non habebitis vitam in vobis (Joan. VI, 54). Facinus vel flagitium videtur jubere: 0075 figura est ergo, praecipiens passioni dominicae communicandum, et suaviter atque utiliter recondendum in memoria quod pro nobis caro ejus crucifixa et vulnerata sit. Ait Scriptura: Si esurierit inimicus tuus, ciba illum; si sitit, potum da illi. Hic nullo dubitante beneficentiam praecipit: sed quod sequitur, Hoc enim faciens carbones ignis congeres super caput ejus (Prov. XXV, 21, 22; Rom. XII, 20); malevolentiae facinus putes juberi: ne igitur dubitaveris figurate dictum, et cum possit dupliciter interpretari, uno modo ad nocendum, altero ad praestandum; ad beneficentiam te potius charitas revocet, ut intelligas carbones ignis esse urentes poenitentiae gemitus, quibus superbia sanatur ejus qui dolet se inimicum fuisse hominis, a quo ejus miseriae subvenitur. Item cum ait Dominus, Qui amat animam suam, perdet eam (Joan. XII, 25), non utilitatem vetare putandus est, qua debet quisque conservare animam suam; sed figurate dictum, perdat animam, id est, perimat atque amittat usum ejus, quem nunc habet, perversum scilicet atque praeposterum, quo inclinatur temporalibus, ut aeterna non quaerat. Scriptum est: Da misericordi, et ne suscipias peccatorem (Eccli. XII, 4). Posterior pars hujus sententiae videtur vetare beneficentiam; ait enim, Ne suscipias peccatorem: intelligas ergo figurate positum pro peccato peccatorem, ut peccatum ejus non suscipias.