Isatis herba

who planted vineyards for himself, constructed gardens and orchards, and planted them with every kind of tree? And who, as is held in 1 Kings, chapter 4, discoursed upon trees, from the cedar which is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall, and spoke of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes? How acutely does Isaiah, easily the prince of the prophets, by using a similitude taken from a vineyard, describe first the clemency and mercy of God gathering a church for Himself from the Jewish people, then the ingratitude of that people, and finally its reprobation? How beautifully does he liken the birth and rising of Christ to a tree that has been cut down and then sprouts again? Indeed, if one must say what is the case, almost all of Sacred Scripture seems to consist of parables concerning the living things born of the earth and rustic matters. Hence the New Testament resounds with so many similitudes and teems with so many parables taken from natural things, such as that of the one cleaning his threshing floor with a winnowing fan, of the ax placed at the roots of the trees