Uriah sets forth the Jews: Bathsheba, the True Church: David represents Christ. Uriah would not go into his house,—nor the Jews enter into the House of Wisdom: Uriah, by too carefully keeping the letters with which he was entrusted, perished; the Jews, as we have just been reminded, by clinging too closely to the letter of Scripture, were also lost;—and Christ took the Church from them, and wedded her to Himself.The symbolical interpretation of the history is very well given by Hildebert, in verses which however are a little too outspoken to be translated.
Judæo regi nuda puella placet.
Nuda placet Christo Lex non vestita figuris;
Aufert Judæis hanc, sociatque sibi.
Vir non vult intrare domum, nec spiritualem
Intellectum plebs Israel ingreditur.
Scripta gerit, per scripta perit deceptus Urias;
Sic et Judæus scripta sequendo perit.
Quiescamus et psallamus,
Adsunt enim nuptiæ.
S. Melito. Nuptiæ sunt Christi et Ecclesiae; Dilectus est Christus; Lectus unitas Ecclesiæ.
According to the usual mediæval allegory,—as for instance explained by Honorius of Autun on the eightieth Psalm,—the trumpets, so usually employed in the Jewish Feasts, are the harsher Law; the sweeter Psaltery is the gentler teaching of the Gospel.
