i. Catholic Epistles. — (a) The Epistle of James is peculiarly interesting : traditionally, and in the opinion of many modern critics, the work of James, the Lord's brother, it shows many parallels with the Synoptic Gospels. 'The love of nature, the sympathy in all human interests, the readiness to find "sermons in stones and good in everything" must have characterized the child Jesus and coloured all His intercourse with His fellows from His earliest years. It is interesting, therefore, to find the same fondness for figurative speech in the Epistles of His brothers, St. James and St. Jude' (Mayor, Ep. of St. Jame^, p. Ixii). Thus Ja 1": 'The lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin : and the sin, when it is fullgrown, bringeth forth death.' The same metaphor is found in Ps 7" and in Philo (ed. Mangey, i. 40, 149, 183). 1": 'The Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning ' ; cf. Mai i-, Ps 27' 36»), Is 60'-"-=», 1 Jn P, Wis 7=^ also Test. Abr. (ed. M. R. James, p. 37) (where the archangel Michael is called ' Father of all lights '), Philo (ed. Mangey, i. 579, 637), and Plato {Bep. vi. 505, vii. 517). Sometimes St. James, in his symbolical language, reminds us of the Synoptists. The remarkable passage 3°"^'' contains several metaphors ; most striking is v.^ : the tongue ' setteth on fire the wheel of nature and is set on fire by hell.' The wheel, catching fire from the glowing axle, is compared to the wide-spreading mischief done by the tongue, yiveci.^ (tr. 'nature') means (1) birth ; (2) creation ; (3) the seen and temporal as opposed to the unseen and eternal ; the ' wheel ' means either the incessant change of life or (if the wheel is at rest) the circle of life. Other metaphors are 4" 5-, etc.
(6) i and S Peter.— I P V : 'sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.' 1": 'girding up the loins of your mind.' 2*-': 'chief corner stone.' 2'-^: 'shepherd of your souls.' The same metaphor appears again in 5'''- 3. 4 ; • flock of God,' ' chief Shepherd.' 5'^: 'Babylon 'may be either literal or metaphorical : probably the former. 2 P 1* : 'unfruitful.' I's-": 'tabernacle' (cf. 2 Co 5'). 1'": 'and the day-star arise in your hearts.' 2^ : ' make merchandise of you.' 2" : ' springs without water.'
(c) The Johannine Epistles have not many metaphors — those there are are of course conceived of as are those in the Fourth Gospel, e.g. the dwell- ing on light in 1 Jn 1. In 4' : ' prove the spirits, whether they be of God,' irveii/x.aTa do not seem to be personified. 4'* : ' perfect love casteth out fear.' In 1 Jn2"and2Jn' we have mention of the Antichrist (see below under ' Kevelation '). The phrase, ' Even now have there arisen many antichrists,' seems to show that the word is taken generally and metaphorically for false teachers.
(d) Jude has resemblances sometimes to James, sometimes to Revelation (cf. Jude" with Rev 12'). In v.* that the angels are ' kept in everlasting bonds' is to be taken literally, not metaphorically.
In vv. "■" we have a string of metaphors: the wicked are called 'hidden rocks,' 'shepherds that without fear feed theinselvcs,' 'clouds with- out water,' 'autumn trees without fruit,' 'wild waves,' 'wandering stars.' v.-'": ' snatching them out of the lire' (cf. Zee 3-).
S. Revelation. — Metaphor in Revelation raises peculiar dilticulty. Though elsewhere in the NT metaphors are frequent and not always sharply defined, here in an Apocalypse they are so much part and parcel of the whole book that, short of discussing them in detail along with allied problems of interpretation, the only possible course in a short article is to make a few brief generalizations. Ordinary metaphors shade off into theological and (occasionally) mythological conceptions, so that we cannot separate one from the other. But it is necessary to state briefij' the method of interpre- tation of the Apocalypse without which the meta- phors, as everything else in it, are obscure. This seems to be done satisfactorily only if we pursue concurrently several ditt'erent lines of interpreta- tion: (1) the contemporary-historical (reference to events of the writer's own day) ; (2) the eschato- logical (the foretelling of the end of all things under symbolic imagery) ; and (3) the mythological (particularly in ch. 12) ; also (4) the author un- doubtedly had visions wherein he saw spiritual things portrayed ; and (5) it is difficult to leave out of account the existence of sources. The danger of interpretation is not so much to refuse to see metajihor, as to see it where it is really not present at all : many things which to some critics have seemed only ' crude symbols ' of spiritual truth were probably to the wiiter literal truth of things he had seen — none the less real because he had seen them not with his bodily eyes but with the eye of faith in a vision. How far this was so must remain uncertain, but the point must not be overlooked entirely. 'No scene in the great Christian Apocalypse can be successfully repro- duced upon canvas ; "The imagery . . . is symbolic and not pictorial " (Westcott)' (Swete, Apocalypse', p. cxxxviii). But because we cannot pictorially conceive of a thing, we have no right simply to say it is a metaphor.