Matthew 12:20

Flax. The Hebrew is, literally, a dimly burning wick he shall not quench (Isaiah 42:3). The quotation stops at the end of the third verse in the prophecy; but the succeeding verse is beautifully suggestive as describing the Servant of Jehovah by the same figures in which he pictures his suffering ones - a wick and a reed. "He shall not burn dimly, neither shall his spirit be crushed." He himself, partaking of the nature of our frail humanity, is both a lamp and a reed, humble, but not to be broken, and the "light of the world." Compare the beautiful passage in Dante, where Cato directs Virgil to wash away the stains of the nether world from Dante's face, and to prepare him for the ascent of the purgatorial mount by girding him with a rush, the emblem of humility :

"Go, then, and see thou gird this one about With a smooth rush, and that thou wash his face, So that thou cleanse away all stain therefrom. For 'twere not fitting that the eye o'ercast By any mist should go before the first Angel, who is of those of Paradise. This little island, round about its base, Below there, yonder, where the billow beats it, Doth rushes bear upon its washy ooze. No other plant that putteth forth the leaf, Or that doth indurate, can there have life, Because it yieldeth not unto the shocks. There he begirt me as the other pleased; O marvellous! for even as he culled The humble plant, such it sprang up again Suddenly there where he uprooted it."

Purg., 1, 94 - 105, 133 - 137.