Annotation LXI

”I will open my mouth in parables.” — Matthew 13:35

That the prophecy of Psalm 77, cited by Matthew, is to be understood literally of Christ.

Thomas Cajetan, elucidating this prophecy of the psalm in [his] commentary on Matthew, speaks in this manner: “Transumptively Matthew drew the prophetic word from Psalm 77; for to the letter that text speaks of a similitude of deeds [done]. But the Evangelist, using a mystical sense, applies [it] to metaphorical similitudes. For both agree in the common notion of a parable, or similitudinary speech.” Against this explanation, Ambrose [Catharinus], bishop of Compsa, in book 2 of [his] Annotations, is found [inveighing] with these words: “These things are false and dangerous. False, I say, because they suppose those words to be verified to the letter of that Asaph. But what was he, that it should befit him according to the letter to say, ‘Attend, my people, [to] my law’? — what people did he himself have under him, or what law could he prescribe to anyone? And with what face does he say that this passage is drawn transumptively to Christ, when the Evangelist testifies [it] to be fulfilled in him — [a thing] which, according to truth, must be understood of those parables which the Lord was uttering, which were not something really done? But whereas he says that similitudes of things really done agree, in the notion of a parable, with metaphorical and fictitious similitudes, [that] is true only very equivocally. Likewise, unfittingly would one thing said precisely [of the one] be drawn to the other, even if they agreed in a generic notion. For speech —

— for [speech], spoken precisely of the ass, would be unfittingly drawn to man, on account of that [generic] agreement, because man and ass agree in the notion of animal. In Christ, therefore, that passage is verified to the letter, as all catholics have received [it]; because the Evangelist attests this, and the words themselves [attest it]. For he himself is the true Asaph, who came that he might gather together the scattered [things]; to him a people was given to be instructed; he, finally, brought forth his own law by his own mouth, and taught [it]. Beware, then, if you are wise, pious reader, of this doctrine, which so manifestly fights against the sense of the doctors and against most assured truth.” This [says] Ambrose [Catharinus].