II. of a Paronomasia

    OF A PARONOMASIA.

    PARONOMASIA, Paronomasia, Agnomination, or likeness of words, (of para, which in composition, signifies with alteration, and anoma, a name, or from paranomazw to change, or allude to a name or word) is when by the change of one letter or Word, the signification thereof is also changed. This figure is frequent in the Latin, and is very ornamental, as Nata salo, suscepta solo, patre edita Coelo---ab exordio, ad exodium. And the native beauty of it being peculiar to the original languages can hardly be shown in English. There are many in the Hebrew, of the Old; and the Greek of the New Testament, which the learned may find in Glassius; take, however, a few English examples, by which you may judge of the rest; as, friends turned fiends. You are like to have a bare gain out of this bargain. Bolder in a buttery than in a battery.---Wine is the blood of the vine.---No stumbling but tumbling; errors will cause terrors. Scripture examples are many, as 2Co 10:3, "Though we walk in the flesh, yet do we not war after the flesh; 2Co 6:9, "As unknown, and yet known;" see 2Co 4:8-9, and Mt 8:22. Examples in the Hebrew, text are Isa 57:6, and Isa 65:12; Ge 18:27; Ex 25:27, and Ex 32:18; 1Sa 13:17; Ps 69:30-32; Isa 5:7, and Isa 13:6; Joe 1:15; Jer 1:11-12, and Jer 48:43; Isa 24:17; Ge 9:27; Isa 65:11. In the Greek text, Mt 16:18. Tu es Petpov, &c., super hac Petra ædificabo Ecclesiam meam, &c., where there is an allusion to the name of Peter, though Christ speaks of himself; Peter having confessed him to be the Son of the living God, (1Pe 2:4-6,) which plainly appears by the context;---As if Christ had said, the name I give thee is not in vain, for thou hast acted conformable to it, when in thy confession, thou hast expressed the true rock, upon which thou, and all believers, are to be built. Erasmus thus paraphrases it,---"I also, because I would not have so magnificent a testimony unrequited, affirm, that thou art truly Peter, that is, a solid stone, so fixed that thou shalt not wave hither and thither, according to the giddy humour of the vulgar. And upon this rock of thy profession (viz., myself) will I build my church, that is, my house and palace, as upon an immoveable foundation, which all the open violence, or private stratagems of hell, shall not be able to destroy. Satan will employ his various artifices to ensnare you, and will stir up a wicked generation to circumvent, trepan, and persecute you; but mine all-powerful protection shall be your invincible defence during your sound and solid profession; the church is my heavenly kingdom, the unbelieving world is the devil's, none of the former have need to fear of the latter, if he be a Peter, that is like thee." In the Syriac tongue, in which Christ speaks, the same word XXXX signifies both Peter a proper name, and Petra a rock, a noun appellative. Hence Bellarmine clamours, saying, "We have what we would, viz., that Peter is that rock of whom Christ speaks. If Augustine, says he, had considered that Cephas signifies nothing but a rock, and that the Lord had said, thou art a rock, and upon this rock, &c., he had made no doubt of the truth of the sentence." But the Jesuit gains nothing by this XXXX: as it is a proper name, it has a different signification from Cephas as it is a common name, as Abel. Deborah, Rachel, Jonah, &c., signify one thing when they are proper names; and another when they are common names, although there be no change in the word or denomination; the Syriac joins a masculine pronoun XXXX he, to the first Cephas, and the feminine XXXX hæc this, to the latter Cephas, which is of the feminine gender when it signifies a stone, as 1Co 10:4; Mt 28:2; Mr 16:4. Most faithfully therefore has Matthew expressed the words of Christ in Greek, which alone is to be esteemed authentic; and it is certain, that the Holy Spirit did on purpose change the speech in the authentical Greek text, to make it perspicuous, lest any body through error or inadvertency should apply those things to Peter, which must be understood of the doctrine and confession of Christ, or Christ himself proposed in that confession. From the whole we may infer what a weak foundation the pope's supremacy is built upon.

    Mt 11:17, "We have piped, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented." In the Syriac tongue in which Christ spake, there is a fair allusion in those words, "danced, lamented," for both are of the same root, and differ only in conjugation.