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| The Bramble and the Agnos the Symbol of Chastity; The Four Gospels, that Is, Teachings or Laws, Instructing to Salvation.
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Chapter III.—The
Bramble and the Agnos the Symbol of Chastity; The Four Gospels, that
Is, Teachings or Laws, Instructing to Salvation.
Now the bramble commends chastity, for the bramble
and the agnos is the same tree: by some it is called bramble, by
others agnos.2787
| 2787
Jahn’s reading is here followed. [This is a puzzle as well
as a parable; the Seventy give ῥάμνος, which is not = ἄγνος. It spoils the force of
Jotham’s caustic satire to adopt this conception of our
author.] | Perhaps it is because the plant is akin
to virginity that it is called bramble and agnos; bramble,
because of its strength and firmness against pleasures; agnos, because
it always continues chaste. Hence the Scripture relates that
Elijah, fleeing from the face of the woman Jezebel,2788
at first came under a bramble, and
there, having been heard, received strength and took food; signifying
that to him who flies from the incitements of lust, and from a
woman—that is, from pleasure—the tree of chastity is a
refuge and a shade, ruling men from the coming of Christ, the chief of
virgins. For when the first laws, which were published in the
times of Adam and Noah and Moses, were unable to give salvation to man,
the evangelical law alone has saved all.
And this is the cause why the fig-tree may be said
not to have obtained the kingdom over trees, which, in a spiritual
sense, mean men; and the fig-tree the command, because man desired,
even after the fall, again to be subject to the dominion of virtue, and
not to be deprived of the immortality of the paradise of
pleasure. But, having transgressed, he was rejected and cast far
away, as one who could no longer be governed by immortality, nor was
capable of receiving it. And the first message to him after the
transgression was preached by Noah,2789
to which, if he had applied his mind,
he might have been saved from sin; for in it he promised both happiness
and rest from evils, if he gave heed to it with all his might, just as
the vine promises to yield wine to those who cultivate it with care and
labour. But neither did this law rule mankind, for men did not
obey it, although zealously preached by Noah. But, after they
began to be surrounded and drowning by the waters, they began to
repent, and to promise that they would obey the commandments.
Wherefore with scorn they are rejected as subjects; that is, they are
contemptuously told that they cannot be helped by the law; the Spirit
answering them back and reproaching them because they had deserted
those men whom God had commanded to help them, and to save them, and
make them glad; such as Noah and those with him. “Even to
you, O rebellious,” said he, “I come, to bring help to you
who are destitute of prudence, and who differ in nothing from dry
trees, and who formerly did not believe me when I preached that you
ought to flee from present things.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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