Chapter 9.—Of the Term “Enigma,” And of Tropical Modes of Speech.

15. What has been said relates to the words of the apostle, that “we see now through a glass;” but whereas he has added, “in an enigma,” the meaning of this addition is unknown to any who are unacquainted with the books that contain the doctrine of those modes of speech, which the Greeks call Tropes, which Greek word we also use in Latin. For as we more commonly speak of schemata than of figures, so we more commonly speak of tropes than of modes. And it is a very difficult and uncommon thing to express the names of the several modes or tropes in Latin, so as to refer its appropriate name to each. And hence some Latin translators, through unwillingness to employ a Greek word, where the apostle says, “Which things are an allegory,”960    Gal. iv. 24 have rendered it by a circumlocution—Which things signify one thing by another. But there are several species of this kind of trope that is called allegory, and one of them is that which is called enigma. Now the definition of the generic term must necessarily embrace also all its species; and hence, as every horse is an animal, but not every animal is a horse, so every enigma is an allegory, but every allegory is not an enigma. What then is an allegory, but a trope wherein one thing is understood from another? as in the Epistle to the Thessalonians, “Let us not therefore sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober: for they who sleep, sleep in the night; and they who are drunken, are drunken in the night: but let us who are of the day, be sober.”961    1 Thess. v. 6–8 But this allegory is not an enigma. For here the meaning is patent to all but the very dull; but an enigma is, to explain it briefly, an obscure allegory, as, e.g., “The horseleech had three daughters,”962    Prov. xxx. 15 and other like instances. But when the apostle spoke of an allegory, he does not find it in the words, but in the fact; since he has shown that the two Testaments are to be understood by the two sons of Abraham, one by a bondmaid, and the other by a free woman, which was a thing not said, but also done. And before this was explained, it was obscure; and accordingly such an allegory, which is the generic name, could be specifically called an enigma.

16. But because it is not only those that are ignorant of the books that contain the doctrine of tropes, who inquire the apostle’s meaning, when he said that we “see now in an enigma,” but those, too, who are acquainted with the doctrine, but yet desire to know what that enigma is in which “we now see;” we must find a single meaning for the two phrases, viz. for that which says, “we see now through a glass,” and for that which adds, “in an enigma.” For it makes but one sentence, when the whole is so uttered, “We see now through a glass in an enigma.” Accordingly, as far as my judgment goes, as by the word glass he meant to signify an image, so by that of enigma any likeness you will, but yet one obscure, and difficult to see through. While, therefore, any likenesses whatever may be understood as signified by the apostle when he speaks of a glass and an enigma, so that they are adapted to the understanding of God, in such way as He can be understood; yet nothing is better adapted to this purpose than that which is not vainly called His image. Let no one, then, wonder, that we labor to see in any way at all, even in that fashion of seeing which is granted to us in this life, viz. through a glass, in an enigma. For we should not hear of an enigma in this place if sight were easy. And this is a yet greater enigma, that we do not see what we cannot but see. For who does not see his own thought? And yet who does see his own thought, I do not say with the eye of the flesh, but with the inner sight itself? Who does not see it, and who does see it? Since thought is a kind of sight of the mind; whether those things are present which are seen also by the bodily eyes, or perceived by the other senses; or whether they are not present, but their likenesses are discerned by thought; or whether neither of these is the case, but things are thought of that are neither bodily things nor likenesses of bodily things, as the virtues and vices; or as, indeed, thought itself is thought of; or whether it be those things which are the subjects of instruction and of liberal sciences; or whether the higher causes and reasons themselves of all these things in the unchangeable nature are thought of; or whether it be even evil, and vain, and false things that we are thinking of, with either the sense not consenting, or erring in its consent.

CAPUT IX.

15. De aenigmate et tropicis locutionibus. Haec dicta sunt propter quod ait Apostolus, nunc per speculum nos videre. Quia vero addidit, in aenigmate; multis hoc incognitum est qui eas litteras nesciunt, in quibus est doctrina quaedam de locutionum modis, quos Graeci tropos vocant, eoque graeco vocabulo etiam nos utimur pro latino. Sicut enim schemata usitatius dicimus quam figuras, ita usitatius dicimus tropos quam modos. Singulorum autem modorum sive troporum nomina, ut singula singulis referantur, difficillimum est et insolentissimum latine enuntiare. Unde quidam interpretes nostri, quod ait Apostolus, Quae sunt in allegoria (Galat. IV, 24), nolentes graecum vocabulum ponere, circumloquendo interpretati sunt dicentes, Quae sunt aliud ex alio significantia. Hujus autem tropi, id est allegoriae, plures sunt species, in quibus est etiam quod dicitur aenigma. Definitio autem ipsius nominis generalis, omnes etiam species complectatur necesse est. Ac per hoc sicut omnis equus animal est, non omne animal equus est: ita omne aenigma allegoria est, non omnis allegoria aenigma est. Quid ergo est allegoria, nisi tropus ubi ex alio aliud intelligitur, quale illud est ad Thessalonicenses: Itaque non dormiamus sicut et caeteri: sed vigilemus, et sobrii simus. Nam qui dormiunt, nocte dormiunt; et qui inebriantur, nocte ebrii sunt: nos autem 1069 qui diei sumus, sobrii simus (I Thess. V, 6-8)? Sed haec allegoria non est aenigma. Nam nisi multum tardis iste sensus in promptu est. Aenigma est autem, ut breviter explicem, obscura allegoria, sicuti est, Sanguisugae erant tres filiae (Prov. XXX, 15); et quaecumque similia. Sed ubi allegoriam nominavit Apostolus, non in verbis eam reperit, sed in facto, cum e duobus filiis Abrahae, uno de ancilla, altero de libera, quod non dictum, sed etiam factum fuit, duo Testamenta intelligenda monstravit; quod antequam exponeret, obscurum fuit: proinde allegoria talis, quod est generale nomen, posset specialiter aenigma nominari.

16. Sed quia non soli qui eas litteras nesciunt, quibus discuntur tropi, quaerunt quid dixerit Apostolus, nunc in aenigmate nos videre; verum etiam qui sciunt, tamen quod sit illud aenigma ubi nunc videmus, nosse desiderant: ex utroque invenienda una est sententia; et ex illo scilicet quod ait, Videmus nunc per speculum; et ex isto quod addit, in aenigmate. Una est enim cum tota sic dicitur, Videmus nunc per speculum in aenigmate. Proinde, quantum mihi videtur, sicut nomine speculi imaginem voluit intelligi; ita nomine aenigmatis quamvis similitudinem, tamen obscuram, et ad perspiciendum difficilem. Cum igitur speculi et aenigmatis nomine quaecumque similitudines ab Apostolo significatae intelligi possint, quae accommodatae sunt ad intelligendum Deum, eo modo quo potest; nihil tamen est accommodatius quam id quod imago ejus non frustra dicitur. Nemo itaque miretur etiam in isto modo videndi qui concessus est huic vitae, per speculum scilicet in aenigmate, laborare nos ut quomodocumque videamus. Nomen quippe hic non sonaret aenigmatis, si esset facilitas visionis. Et hoc est grandius aenigma, ut non videamus quod non videre non possumus. Quis enim non videt cogitationem suam? et quis videt cogitationem suam, non oculis carnalibus dico, sed ipso interiore conspectu? Quis non eam videt, et quis eam videt? Quandoquidem cogitatio visio est animi quaedam, sive adsint ea quae oculis quoque corporalibus videantur, vel caeteris sentiantur sensibus, sive non adsint, et eorum similitudines cogitatione cernantur; sive nihil eorum, sed ea cogitentur quae nec corporalia sunt, nec corporalium similitudines, sicut virtutes et vitia, sicut ipsa denique cogitatio cogitatur; sive illa quae per disciplinas traduntur liberalesque doctrinas; sive istorum omnium causae superiores atque rationes in natura immutabili cogitentur; sive etiam mala et vana, ac falsa cogitemus, vel non consentiente sensu, vel errante consensu.