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| Chapter XXIII. That the figure Synecdoche, in which the part stands for the whole, is very familiar to the Holy Scripture.
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Chapter XXIII.
That the figure Synecdoche, in which the part stands for
the whole, is very familiar to the Holy Scripture.
Whatever then you say of the
Lord Jesus Christ, you say of the whole person, and in mentioning the
Son of God you mention the Son of man, and in mentioning the Son of man
you mention the Son of God: by the grammatical trope synecdoche in
which you understand the whole from the parts, and a part is put for
the whole: and the holy Scriptures certainly show this, as in them the
Lord often uses this trope, and teaches in this way about others and
would have us understand about Himself in the same way. For sometimes
days, and things, and men, and times are denoted in holy Scripture in no other
fashion. As in this case where God declares that Israel shall serve the
Egyptians for four hundred years, and says to Abraham: “Know thou
that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land not theirs, and they shall
bring them under bondage and afflict them four hundred
years.”2588
Whereas if
you take into account the whole time after that God spoke, they are
more than four hundred: but if you only reckon the time in which they
were in slavery, they are less. And in giving this period indeed,
unless you understand it in this way, we must think that the Word of
God lied (and away with such a thought from Christian minds!). But
since from the time of the Divine utterance, the whole period of their
lives amounted to more than four hundred years, and their bondage
endured for not nearly four hundred, you must understand that the part
is to be taken for the whole, or the whole for the part. There is also
a similar way of representing days and nights, where, when in the case
of either division of time one day is meant, either period is shown by
a portion of a single period. And indeed in this way the difficulty
about the time of our Lord’s Passion is cleared up: for whereas
the Lord prophesied that after the model of the prophet Jonah, the Son
of man would be three days and three nights in the heart of the
earth,2589
and whereas
after the sixth day of the week on which He was crucified, He was only
in hell2590
for one day and
two nights, how can we show the truth of the Divine words? Surely by
the trope of Synecdoche, i.e., because to the day on which He was
crucified the previous night belongs, and to the night on which He rose
again, the coming day; and so when there is added the night which
preceded the day belonging to it, and the day which followed the night
belonging to it, we see that there is nothing lacking to the whole
period of time, which is made up of its portions. The holy Scriptures
abound in such instances of ways of speaking: but it would take too
long to relate them all. For so when the Psalm says, “What is a
man that Thou art mindful of Him,”2591
from the part we understand the whole, as while only one man is
mentioned the whole human race is meant. So also where Ahab sinned we
are told that the people sinned. Where—though all are mentioned,
a part is to be understood from the whole. John also the Lord’s
forerunner says: “After me cometh a man who is preferred before
me for He was before me.”2592
How then
does He mean that He would come after Him, whom He shows to be before
Him? For if this is understood of a man who was afterwards born, how
was he before him? But if it is taken of the Word how is it, “a
man cometh after me?” Except that in the one Lord Jesus
Christ is shown both the posteriority of the manhood and the precedence
of the Godhead. And so the result is that one and the same Lord was
before him and came after him: for according to the flesh He was
posterior in time to John; and according to His Deity was before all
men. And so he, when he named that man, denoted both the manhood and
the Word, for as the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God was complete in
both manhood and Divinity2593
in mentioning
one of these natures in Him he denoted the whole person. And what need
is there of anything further? I think that the day would fail me if I
were to try to collect or to tell everything that could be said on this
subject. And what we have already said is enough, at any rate on this
part of the subject, both for the exposition of the Creed, and for the
requirements of our case, and for the limits of our
book.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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