Past historical events, instead of supposititious ones, are sometimes used for illustration. When thus used they serve as allegories, without affecting their original historical significance. Example.—Gal. 4: 22-31. See also Rom. 9:7, 8; 1 Cor. 9:9, 10, and 10:11.
33. A Parable is a similitude taken from natural things, to instruct us in the knowledge of spiritual. Examples.—Matt. 13th, and 21:28-41.
The Parable differs from the Allegory in that the acts ascribed are appropriate to the agents to which they are attributed. [pg 015] In the Allegory, acts may be ascribed to real objects which are not natural to those objects. Example.—See Judges 9:7-15.
The Parable is sometimes used to denote a prophecy, (Num. 23:7); sometimes a discourse, (Job 27:1); sometimes a lamentation, (Micah 2:4); sometimes a proverb, or wise saying, (Prov. 26:7); and sometimes to indicate that a thing is apocryphal. Ezek. 20:49. The terms parable and allegory, are often wrongfully applied.
34. A Riddle is an enigma—something to be guessed. Example.—See Judges 14:24-18. It is sometimes used to denote an allegory. Ezek. 17:1-10.
35. Types are emblems—greater events in the future being prefigured by typical observances, “which are a shadow of good things to come.” Col. 2:17.
36. The Hypocatastasis, or substitution, is a figure introduced by Mr. Lord, in which the objects, or agents, of one class are, without any formal notice, employed in the place of the persons or things of which the passages in which they occur treat; and they are exhibited either as exerting, or as subjected to an agency proper to their nature, in order to represent by analogy, the agency which those persons are to exert, or of which those things are to be the subjects. Example.—“O, my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.”—Isa. 3:12,—expressive of the manner in which they were misled by their rulers and kept from the truth.
37. A Metonymy is a reversion, or the use of a noun to express that with which it is intimately connected, instead of using the term which would literally express the idea. Thus the cause is used for the effect, the effect for the cause, the thing containing for that which is contained in it, &c. Example.—“Ye have eaten up the vineyard.” Isa. 3:14—meaning the fruit of the vineyard.
38. A Synecdoche is the use of a word expressive of a part, to signify the whole; or that expressive of the whole, to denote only a part—as the genus for the species, or the species for the genus, &c. Example.—“Man dieth and wasteth away; yea man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?” Job 14:10.
39. A Hyperbole is an exaggeration in which more is [pg 016] expressed than is intended to be understood. Example.—“I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” John 21:25—meaning that a great number might be written.