The Anti-Simile
A simile is a literary device for making a metaphorical comparison using “like” or “as” and typically it is used to directly link one thing to another. Here is an example, however, of a simile being used for the express purpose of showing how two things are not directly linked and how they are completely different:
“God is not angry like a man; for he is aroused in order to inspire fear; he drives away to summon back; he is angry in order to amend.”
The Sons of Noah
From Noah’s son Ham was born Cush. The author writes that Cush was the inventor of magic and idolatry and, what’s more, became the founder of Zoroastrianism. This is not generally applied to the religion’s history, nor is the metaphorical story behind it. According to the text, the Persians called Cush
“Zoroaster, that is, living star. They were trained by him to worship fire, and they reverence as a god the man who was himself consumed by the divine fire.”
Corruption
The author links corruption so inextricably to the devil that even when the corruption reaches into the very hierarchy of the church, it is not to be passively ignored:
“At these matters many laughed, but a number who were keener of perception lamented that the weeds of the devil should so flourish among the bishops of the Lord.”
In the Belly of the Beast
A story about a priest imprisoned in a crypt inspires the author to combine simile and allusion:
“But the priest like a new Jonah prayed insistently to the Lord to pity him from the interior of the tomb as from the belly of hell, and the tomb being large, as we have said, he was able to extend his hands freely wherever he wished although he could not turn his whole body.”
The Plague of the Gauls
A plague of dysentery hits Gaul, affecting nearly everyone and leaving even royal offspring unprotected. That’s all it takes to set the queen off, delivering a metaphor-laced lecture to the King:
“The divine goodness has long borne with our bad actions; it has often rebuked us with fevers and other evils but repentance did not follow and now we are losing our sons. It is the tears of the poor, the outcries of widows and the sighs of orphans that are destroying them.”
