Chapter 44.—In Speaking of Sin, the Singular Number is
Often Put for the Plural, and the Plural for the
Singular.
But even these latter are
frequently said to die to sin, though undoubtedly they die not to
one sin, but to all the numerous actual sins they have committed in
thought, word, or deed: for the singular number is often put for
the plural, as when the poet says, “They fill its belly with the
armed soldier,”
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though in the case here referred
to there were many soldiers concerned. And we read in our own
Scriptures: “Pray to the Lord, that He take away the serpent from
us.”
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He does
not say
serpents
though the people were suffering from many;
and so in other cases. When, on the other hand, the original sin is
expressed in the plural number, as when we say that infants are
baptized for the remission of
sins
, instead of saying for
the remission of
sin
, this is the converse figure of speech,
by which the plural number is put in place of the singular; as in
the Gospel it is said of the death of Herod, “for they are dead
which sought the young child’s life,”
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instead of saying, “he is
dead.” And in Exodus: “They have made them,” Moses says,
“gods of gold,”
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though they had made only one
calf, of which they said: “These be thy gods, O Israel, which
brought thee up out of the land of Egypt,”
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—here, too, putting the plural in
place of the singular.
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“Uterumque armato milite
complent.”.—
Virgil
,
Æn
. ii.
20.
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Num. xxi. 7
(“serpents,” A. and R.V.).
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Matt. ii. 20
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Ex. xxxii. 31
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Ex. xxxii. 4