Treatise on the Mysteries

Manifold … let us understand them in the deeds themselves. For them, however, it is enough to have fitted on some appearance of an empty likeness, whereas the comparison must be filled out completely from what follows and sought firmly from what is present.

Every work contained in the sacred volumes announces by words, expresses by deeds, and confirms by examples the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which, sent by the Father, he was born a man from the Virgin through the Spirit.

For throughout the whole time of this established age, by true and complete prefigurations in the patriarchs, he either begets, or washes, or sanctifies, or chooses, or separates, or redeems the church: by the sleep of Adam, the flood of Noah, the blessing of Melchizedek, the justification of Abraham, the birth of Isaac, the servitude of Jacob.

In short, throughout all time the whole of prophecy, the working of the mystery, was granted for the knowledge of the flesh he was to assume. And since it has seemed good in this little book to show that in each and every man, time, and thing the image of his coming, preaching, passion, and resurrection, and of our gathering together, is held up as in a mirror, I will not mention some things in passing; but I will treat everything in its own time, beginning from Adam, from whom knowledge of the human race is granted, so that what was completed in the Lord may be known to have been prefigured in many from the very beginning of the world. On Adam.

Adam by his very name prefigures the Lord's birth; for according to the Hebrew language "Adam", which in Greek is ge pyrra, that is,

in Latin, is "fiery earth"; and Scripture is accustomed to call the flesh of the human body earth. This flesh, born in the Lord from the Virgin through the Spirit, changed into a new form foreign to itself, was made conformable to spiritual glory, according to the Apostle: "The second man is from heaven," and the heavenly Adam, because the earthly Adam is the image of the one to come. With so great an authority, then, we safely take even the name of Adam not without some meditation on the future.

It follows that, when Adam was put to sleep, Eve was brought forth from his side and bone. When he awoke, there followed such a prophecy as this: "This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken from her husband; and the two shall be in one flesh." Here I have no labor, for the Apostle, when he recalled this very prophecy, said:

"This is a great mystery, but I speak of Christ and of the church." But we read that only a bone was taken from Adam; how then is it said, "flesh of my flesh"? This could indeed be referred to faith in the deeds of the time: that because the bone which from his side, through him who can do all things, … was clothed with flesh in a woman's body, since the bone taken from the flesh and clothed again with flesh came forth into a body, so, as bone from bone, it is also flesh from flesh. But the Lord in the Gospels, when he was tested by the Jews about giving a bill of divorce, shows that this was said thus by himself rather than by Adam, saying: "Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said: For this reason a man shall leave father and mother, and the two shall be in one flesh?" For this follows after what was said, "flesh of my flesh".

So the prophecy followed upon the thing that was being accomplished in Adam. For since the Lord, who made male and female, said these things, he himself spoke through Adam that bone was from his bone and flesh from his flesh, which was wholly done in Adam himself; and he did not take away the truth of the events, and showed that what was done in another was prefigured from himself.

For since the Word became flesh, and the church is a member of Christ, born from his side through water and given life through blood; and again, since the flesh in which the Word, abiding before the ages, who is the Son of God, was born, abides in us through the sacrament: he taught completely that in Adam and Eve were contained the figure of himself and of the church, which he signifies was sanctified, after the sleep of his death, by communion in his flesh. The same also speaks through the Apostle:

"Adam did not sin, but the woman, sinning, was in transgression. But she will be saved through the bearing of children, if they continue in faith." The church, then, is from tax collectors, sinners, and Gentiles:

since her second and heavenly Adam alone does not sin, she herself, a sinner, will be saved through the begetting of children who continue in faith. Otherwise it is not fitting to understand it so, as if the woman were not redeemed from her sin by the Lord, and would be baptized needlessly if she must rather be freed by the merit of childbearing. But not even by the very begetting of children will she be safe, since she is not saved unless those who are born persevere as believers. And I do not know how it would be just to be made guilty by another's sin or innocent by another's merit.

But, safely comparing spiritual things with spiritual, we shall think thus: that the Apostle chiefly refers the deeds of the great mystery in Adam and Eve, preaching them now of Christ and the church. And these things we should judge to have been spoken by him spiritually in such a way that the discourse

must be referred no less to the teaching of the moment and to the instruction of those whom he was admonishing. For, proclaiming the manifold mercy of God in the first letter to the Corinthians, in the sanctifying of unbelievers through marriage to believers, here too he taught that a sanctification of this kind is to be granted through the procreation of children who believe; so that, as the partnership of one believer through marriage benefits the unbeliever, so the procreation of believers would come to the help of unbelievers.

We must also observe, in Adam's sleep and in the forming of Eve's body, the sacrament of the mystery hidden in Christ and in the church:

for in it is contained the faith and the reasoning of bodily resurrection. For in the creation of the woman clay is no longer taken up, nor is earth shaped into a form, nor is inanimate matter moved into a living soul by God's breath; but flesh grows on bone, and to the flesh

the completion of the body is given, and spiritual vigor follows the completion of the body. This order of resurrection God spoke through Ezekiel, teaching in the things that were to be done the might of his power. For there all things come together: flesh is present, the spirit flies in; nothing of his works is lost to God, to whom, for completing his body, things that were not were present.

And this mystery, according to the Apostle, was hidden from the ages in God: that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ, who, according to the same Apostle, is able to make the body of our lowliness conformed to the body of his glory.

So the church, after the sleep of his passion, when the heavenly Adam rises again, recognizes her own bone, her own flesh, no longer created from clay nor quickened by breathing, but growing on bone and completed into a body from a body as the Spirit flies in. For those who are in Christ will rise according to Christ, in whom the resurrection of all flesh has already been accomplished, since he himself was born in our flesh with the power of God in which he was begotten by the Father before the ages.

And since Jew and Greek, barbarian and Scythian, slave and free, male and female are all one in Christ; since flesh is recognized as from flesh, and the church is the body of Christ, and the mystery that is in Adam and Eve is preached of Christ and the church: whatever is prepared for the church through Christ at the consummation of the times was already completed under Adam and Eve at the beginning of the world. On Cain and Abel.

After the first prefiguration of Christ and the church follow the deeds of Cain and Abel, prefiguring in themselves the difference

of two peoples, and by their very names and occupations marking the character and pursuits of each. For Cain was a tiller of the ground and Abel a keeper of sheep. And each, from his own fruits, presented to God a gift of the mystery; but Abel's gifts are looked upon, and Cain's are not seen. Yet the day of the sacrifice and the place are not distinguished; and to God, who beholds all things, how is the one in his sight and the other outside his sight? But by this signification it is taught that God's sight is the sign of things pleasing to him

and that, though all things are subject to him, his regard yet goes to those that are worthy. Yet nothing had been said before about Cain's character that would make his sacrifice displease. But in what followed, God's foresight is understood in not receiving the sacrifices of one who was going to attack his brother. For with God the knowledge of the future is as certain as a deed done;

for he who was going to kill was not worthy of God's regard, as though he had already killed. In tilling the ground is contained the meaning of works of the flesh, and every fruit of the flesh lies in vices, which drive God's regard away from them, since God abhors them. The sacrifice, then, that comes from the works of the earth is not looked upon. And only the firstlings of the sheep in their fat are pleasing: that is, inward fruits and the sacrifices of our very conscience delight him, and whatever is pleasing in the firstlings of sheep invites to itself the regard of the divine will.

For since Christ is the firstfruits, the firstborn of creation, the firstborn from the dead, and also the chief of priests, so that he may hold the first place in all things; and since he is also a sheep, and according to bodily birth one of the sheep: Abel's sacrifice is acceptable already under the mystery of the church, which would thereafter offer the sacrifice of the holy body from the firstlings of the sheep.

So the one who displeases envies the one who pleases, and, against the command of God, who warned him to be still, the acceptable one is killed by the unacceptable. The guilty one is questioned with a view to the repentance of confession, but he denies, to the increase of his crime; despairing of resurrection, … groaning and trembling, he is kept for the judgment of sevenfold vengeance, and is cursed from the whole earth, which received his brother's blood.

The interpretation of the name Cain is "laughter", and of Abel "weeping".

Are not the things above being fulfilled in the peoples? The offering of the younger is pleasing; the Jew envies the Christian, and, warned in vain by the prophets, has burned to kill him.

He does not seek pardon even through the confession of repentance, but boldly denies the crime committed against God. Despairing of the glory of resurrection, and, after the capture of Jerusalem, subject to the power of those who rule, groaning and trembling he is kept for the judgment of vengeance, separated from the saints by the very interpretations of the names, as the Lord says: "Woe to those who laugh, for they will weep!" and: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted!"

And so that the Lord might teach that everything fits the prefiguration of the two peoples, he said: "Therefore behold, I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes, and some of them you will kill in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the temple and the altar."

… Abel's blood, then, is required of him who, after the prefiguration of Cain, persecuted the righteous and is cursed from the earth, which opened its mouth and received his brother's blood. For in the body of Christ, in which are both the apostles and the church, their whole flesh and posterity took upon themselves the blood of all, as they themselves cried out: "His blood be on us and on our children."

So the prefiguration of the things done in Cain

was followed by faith in their fulfilment; nor can those upon whom the vengeance of the same guilt has followed be separated from the example of the prefiguration. And in what was said, "If you offer rightly but do not divide rightly, have you not sinned?" there is contained, besides the effect of the present matter, the image of the future too;

for nothing pleases God except what is shared, imparted, and made friendly. The people, then, awaiting God's promises through the law, even if it offers rightly to God by keeping the commandments, yet sins unless it shares this very law of God, which is a shadow of things to come, with the gathering of the Gentiles.

He who does not divide rightly, then, will be held in guilt. For Cain, envying his brother, had not shared in the grace of the offering that God had regarded, and was made a sinner because he did not divide rightly. By this example, unless those who are under the law share the offerings of the faithful from the Gentiles that are approved by God, they are in guilt, even if they use the law rightly. On Lamech.

But not even in Lamech are things done outside the image of the future. He is said to have been the husband of two wives, to whose names the name of a third woman also is added, though she was free of marriage to him; and the same Lamech is written to have said these things: "And Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah: Hear my voice, wives of Lamech, attend to my words: for I have killed a man to my wounding, and a young man to my bruising; for sevenfold vengeance has been taken for Cain, but for Lamech seventy times seven."

And who is this, more righteous than the righteous Abel, whose death must now be avenged with so much greater a penalty? The name of the one slain is kept silent; the wound is referred not to the slain but to the slayer, and the bruise is shown to belong to the one striking rather than to the one struck.

The killing of the young man is announced to the wives; though the names of three women are contained, the speech is only to two. The impious man prophesies, and heaps up vengeance for the murder he committed beyond the penalty of Cain.

These things must not be heard in passing, but the figure of things to come must be searched out in them.

Lamech has the figure of the chief of the priests, who, with Jews and Gentiles agreeing with him, fastened the Lord to the cross; for from the court of the chief of the priests the same Lord was led to Herod, the people of believers being separated from the fellowship of the crime; and therefore he boasts to two, as it were his partners and wives, of the killing of the young man.

And since he had no sense of punishment for him, he took upon himself the wounds and the bruise of the injury and the killing. He also spoke by prophetic instinct; for then too the chief of the priests prophesied without knowing it, as is written in the Gospels: "But one of them named Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them: You know nothing, nor do you perceive that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish. He did not say this of himself, but being high priest that year he prophesied." Everything, then, agrees together in persons, events, and effect, and the truth of the deeds embraces the figure of things to come.

The number in the penalty of Cain and of Lamech is also written not without some meaning. For since, according to the prophets, a sevenfold penalty was set for the unjust, Peter, on whom the Lord was building the church as on a living foundation, asks whether he should forgive one who sins against him, according to the law, seven times; and the Lord answered him that he should forgive seventy times seven, teaching by this meaning that the penalty of his passion was to be remitted to those who would believe, so that, as far as vengeance for it had been multiplied, so far again pardon would abound.

Then Seth is born, and in the place of the slain Abel another seed is raised up in him, as Eve says: "God has raised up for me another seed in place of Abel, whom Cain killed."

The interpretation of the name Seth is "foundation of faith"; and since Abel was righteous, and since Seth was born in the place of the righteous, the generation of the saints is understood to be always preserved by God and renewed by successions, the church being to sustain the faith on the foundations in Peter for the faithful. On Noah.

It cannot be denied that what was done concerning Noah is full both of the powers of God and of examples of things to come. For however dull a mind may be, or however turned away from the understanding of truth a will may be, yet things were said and done there which draw out the sense of the truth even from the unwilling. And so that the prophetic power may be understood in each effect of the events, [let us see] what is to be compared with what.

must be briefly set forth. For Noah prefigures the man whom the Lord assumed from the Virgin; and so that this may be known from the very words of Scripture, we must learn what kind of prophecy about him his father Lamech made: "And Lamech begot a son and called his name Noah, saying: This one will make us rest from our works and from the sorrows of our hands and from the earth, which the Lord God cursed."

But these things, I think, cannot fit perfectly the Noah of whom we are speaking. For what rest did he bring the human race, or from what works did he make it cease? On the contrary, under him the whole of mankind is destroyed, the flood is poured out; the earth is given back to the sight of that man, and afterwards life goes on in still graver vices. And where will rest have been given through Noah? But in him who is to make rest, the power of making it is designated.

Moreover, it neither fits human nature, nor is it read as written, nor is it understood from the facts, that Noah did any of these things; but most of the things that were proper to Noah Scripture has set forth most plainly: when he is approved by God, when he is found righteous, when he is ordered to make the ark, when he enters it, when he sends out the raven, when he both receives and sends back the dove, when he goes out of the ark, when he plants a vineyard, when, drunk from its fruit, he is uncovered, when he is mocked by Ham, when he is covered by Shem and Japheth, when he sets out the order and manner of a curse on one and a blessing on two. These things are to be understood as they were done by him.

But a great mystery of the future is contained in these things, and we will treat each in its place, when we must compare events and persons with each other.

To this Noah, then, our Lord, who is the Word made flesh, will be compared, who says in the Gospels: "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light."

He makes us rest, then, and gives rest to souls, and because of the coming judgment he shelters his sons, both begotten and named, in the ark of his teaching and of his church; and he gives the Holy Spirit, and dies, and is mocked, and rises, and

sets for the human race punishment or sanctification for deeds done rightly or wrongly. And in him, when Noah is ordered to enter the ark or go out of it, the principle of the church's sanctification is to be observed. For it is written: "You shall enter the ark, you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives"; and again: "The Lord God spoke to Noah, saying:

Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons' wives." The order of those entering the ark joins the sexes together, men with men, women with women, signifying that those who would enter the church must be continent; and that afterwards each would receive again the use of his own marriage. … when she was sent out a third time.

And it is not uncertain what the following sending out prefigures.

For she returns with the fruitful leaves of the olive, no longer to be taken back by hand, but flying back. This was fulfilled when the seventy disciples, having received the Holy Spirit, sent out to preach the Gospel, returned with the glory of the unclean spirits subjected to them, the Holy Spirit bringing back the fruit of God's mercy, which is signified in the olive,

and because, when these later departed from the Lord, the Spirit would have no rest. Yet the dove flew back to Noah with fruit, signifying by this, in the second return, both the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the subjected demons and, when the disciples departed from the Lord, that there was as yet no rest for him to settle. But the third sending out and flight prefigures his dwelling, which is in the believer, the Holy Spirit, once sent, abiding for ever in the souls of the faithful.

Now the drunkenness from the fruit of the planted vineyard is a figure of the passion. For "the Lord brought a vine out of Egypt and planted it"; and again: "The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel." For the cause of the passion came from the works of his people, transplanted and planted. If anyone perhaps thinks that this drunkenness of Noah does not pertain to the figure of the Lord's death, he will be refuted by what follows; although the cup drunk in the Gospels shows the death of the passion.

And since there were three sons, the father's nakedness is laughed at by one and again covered by two; but though the two covered it with one mind, the third being cursed, there is yet a different blessing in the two for one work. Under these three sons the whole of mankind is shown: those living under the law, those justified under grace, and the Gentiles. Of these, the Gentiles mock the Lord's death and the naked body of God; but in the two who cover the nakedness, the law and grace are contained.

And because Japheth is settled in the houses of Shem, he shows the figure of the Gentiles, who have been led to faith; but Shem bears the person of the Israelite people … On Abraham.

… Sarah also signifies the church, Hagar the synagogue …

And it shows that the seed called in Isaac is Christ; in whom too a prefiguration of the passion is set forth, when he is called by his father to be a sacrifice, when he takes up the wood of the sacrifice, when a ram stands by to complete the sacrifice. …

In the letter added to Abram's name the number is one; in the one that is added to Sarai's, a hundred is found; and the Savior, leaving

the ninety-nine on the mountains, went away to seek the one that had strayed. So the number one is added in Abram's letter. For there is one Lord Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin, and by that one all the crimes of believers have been cleansed. And what was to be fulfilled through himself he prefigures in Abraham: the one, by the addition of one, is called father of the nations; the other, by the assumption of one, is established father and redeemer of the nations, the hundredth sheep being restored to Sarah, that is, to the primitive church of the heavenly Jerusalem. … [18*] As that householder in the Gospel visited the fruitless fig tree with a threefold coming, so holy mother church has marked for herself the coming of the Savior in a yearly return through a set-apart space of three weeks. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost. He came before the law, because what each should do or follow was made known through natural understanding. He came under the law, because by the examples of the patriarchs and the proclamations of the prophets he confirmed the decrees of the law to the seed of Abraham. He came a third time, after the law, through grace, for the calling of the Gentiles, so that from the rising of the sun to its setting the children might learn to praise the name of the Lord; and he does not cease to exhort them to the worship of his majesty until the end of the world. … On Isaac.

… Rebecca has a double figure, of marriage and of childbirth, and in marriage she presents a type of the church: she gives drink to the camels, that is, to the Gentiles subjected to Christ; she teaches the hearing of faith through the earrings; she shows the adornment of good work by the bracelets of the hands; asked about the marriage, she answers in the manner of those to be joined to Christ, so as to come to the sight of him; she goes out from her father's house, showing that unless one renounces vices and lusts he cannot be Christ's servant; she signifies two nations, two peoples. … On Jacob.

… Scripture interpreting the proper meaning of this name: "And Esau said to Jacob: Let me taste of this red stew, for I am faint."

"For this reason his name was called Edom." Then he sold his birthright for food, saying: "Behold, I am dying, and what are these first rights to me?" Among the ancients this was the dignity of the first rights,

that the firstborn should obtain the inheritance of the father's house, the brothers born after being subject to him. Since, then, for those living in the body the dignity of the firstborn concerns this life, which Esau, in the prefiguration of the unbelieving people, sold for carnal desires, he does not despair of the present honor of the firstborn when he says, "Behold, I am dying, and what are these first rights to me?" (for that primacy which belongs to men was received before death); but because, bearing in himself the form of the people, himself the firstborn through the law (for this people had been chosen first into God's inheritance), he fell from the hope of resurrection and of the glory of God; occupied with the desires of the body, he declared that he despaired of his honor, which the firstborn should have hoped for after death.

Esau, then, despairing of his first rights, the rest is done both according to the truth of the event and according to the power of the prefiguration.

So when Isaac's eyes were dim, he tells Esau, according to custom, to prepare him food from hunting and to be blessed by him before the time of his death. When Rebecca learned this, she urges Jacob to prepare food for his father quickly from two kids, and to put on Esau's robe,

and to counterfeit his hands, because they were smooth, and his neck, with kids' skins bound on. When this was done, he seized the blessing prepared for Esau. Then he is blessed in these words: "Behold, the smell of my son is as the smell of a full field which the Lord has blessed. And may the Lord give you of the dew of heaven from above and of the fatness of the earth abundance of grain and wine. And let nations serve you, and princes shall worship you; and be lord of your brother, and the sons of your father shall worship you; and whoever curses you shall be cursed, and whoever blesses you shall be blessed."

The thing is indeed done according to its present effect in Esau and Jacob, but the spiritual prefiguration keeps its own order. The elder had sold his first rights through bodily desires, despairing of the honor of the future for the luxury of the present; and the younger bought them at the cost of present things.

Do not things to be done spiritually follow upon things done bodily? Unbelievers think that every good lies in pleasure, and the earlier people lost the honor of resurrection through the desires of the flesh; but believers renounce present joys, placing all their hope in things to come, and, being continent in mind and body for its sake, they seize what was destined for the elder.

For Jacob is clothed with Esau's robe, which is usually mentioned as the garment of immortality, even in the Gospel, where the younger brother, the same who had squandered the patrimony he received, received the first robe. And because he was to be transferred from sins into the brightness of innocence, Jacob is therefore covered with kids' skins, in the event itself imitating his brother's appearance; but because he was to have, as a sinner, the dignity of the blessing he seized, in the skins of dead animals he takes on the form of a sinner.

The very reasoning of the blessing and the force of the words show that nothing there is to be understood according to the deeds of the time.

For Jacob is blessed to abound in wine and wheat from the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth. On the contrary, he was endangered by famine and bought grain

from Egypt. Nations are made subject to him in servitude; rather, he himself gave himself with his whole household into Pharaoh's power. He is said to be worshiped by princes, but rather he endured a long servitude under the rule of Laban.

He is made lord over his brother; yet why did he worship his brother as a lord? Since, then, Scripture is not in danger of falsehood, although these things were said of Jacob, they are both signified and carried out in the people whom he prefigured. For all these things, according to the prophetic and gospel promises, are reserved for the faithful, who are to judge the world and the angels and are destined for fellowship in the heavenly kingdom.

Finally, the very opening of the blessing embraces not present things but future and perfected ones. For he says: "Behold,

the smell of my son is as the smell of a full field which God has blessed." Smell is the foreknowledge of the spirit; the full field is the perfection of fruits. And the field, as the Gospels teach, stands for the world; but a blessed world must certainly be thought to mean not the one that

will be dissolved and will not be, but the one that is eternal and full of perfected fruits. Since, then, Jacob's smell is the same as that of the full field, and smell, according to the nature of things, is the foreknowledge of the spirit (since what each thing is is perceived by smelling), Isaac signifies that he smells, that is, foreknows by the spirit, the blessing of the younger people and the future blessing of the eternal world, eternal in both respects, that is, both in the world and in the one who will enjoy it.

And so that we might discern the abundant mercy of God in prefiguring the effects of the future under present things, everything was so carefully

set forth and written that one and the same order of history concurs both in the event done and in the future hope. For Isaac, about to bless Jacob in place of Esau, is anxious not to be deceived in any way; for Jacob was saying he was Esau. Isaac, then, being blind, said: "Come near to me, and I will feel you, my son, whether you are my son Esau or not."

And although he was clothed in Esau's robe and had counterfeited his appearance by putting on the skins, yet he was handled by the blind man not without suspicion. For he said, as he felt him: "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau." By these things, then, Isaac's anxious affection for Esau is shown.

But when Esau afterwards returned from the field and the hunt and presented himself to his father as the firstborn, that he might bless him, and the seizing of the blessing was discovered, Isaac is not moved; rather, he persists in confirming the blessing itself, saying: "If I have made him your lord and made all his brothers his servants, and confirmed him with grain and wine, what shall I do for you, my son?"

Rather, when he begged with weeping and tears that he would bless him, he spoke thus: "Behold, your dwelling shall be from the fatness of the earth and from the dew of heaven above, and by your sword you shall live and serve your brother. But it shall be, when you put off his yoke from your neck."

Whence, then, is this change of will? And why does the man's affection disagree with itself, unless because the language of Scripture is tempered both to the accomplishing of events and to the expectation of hope? He had the anxiety of questioning from fatherly affection; he refused to change the blessing from spiritual knowledge.

There he did a thing of nature; here he kept the order of prefiguration. There the father is anxious in the sanctifying of the firstborn; here he perseveres, in the spirit of a prophet, in the blessing of the younger people.

And history tells of the event done, and its order does not abandon the prefigured hope. But not even in this did the prophetic reasoning cease: that the sinful and earlier people could hope for the blessing of the younger people, if it believed.

For to all the approach to salvation lies open, and the way of life is difficult not because of its own troubles, which in fact are none, but by the right of our own choice. For the delay in obtaining God's mercy lies in the human will, which becomes known from this very word about Esau. For he had asked to be blessed, but the father, moved by a spiritual impulse,

both left him to the world and gave him over to the sword and assigned him to his brother's servitude. But lest these decrees be thought perpetual and without return through repentance, he deferred the blessing he asked for until he should put off from his neck the yoke of the brother who was to rule him. It is left to his own right, then, to put off the yoke, because to each the right of his own will is free for faith, and he is worthy of blessing when he has passed from the servitude of irreligion into the freedom of faith. On Moses.

The account of the deeds of Moses also kept the order of prefiguration begun already with Adam. And it is worthy of the mercy of God that the deeds of all his patriarchs should imitate to some extent the perfection

of the things that were to be completed in our Lord. For what was fulfilled in that one man and through that one man is partly prefigured through figures, times, and generations. For the imitation of so many ages could not attain what of truth is in that one man; and yet nothing was done in individuals or through individuals in such a way that it did not speak of what was afterwards completed through him or in him, almost by the very imitation of present deeds.

For Moses, born at the time when Pharaoh had ordered all male

children who were born to be killed, floating on the water on wood, is preserved as leader for the people. Did not the hatred and fear of a king, equal and the same, blaze out at the time when our Lord was born according to man, against that same man for us whom he assumed through

the mystery of wood and water in himself, and who was appointed to heavenly glory and established king of the nations? Then Pharaoh's daughter, coming to bathe at the river, took up this Moses. His sister, being present, offered a nurse from the Hebrews. She then brought his mother; she took him to nurse, and brought him back to Pharaoh's daughter, who received him and adopted him as her son.

Join the persons, compare the effects, look at the deeds: you will find in the imitation of present things the truth of things to come. For under Moses' sister, the law followed Christ as far as the mystery of wood and water. And in Pharaoh's daughter is the figure of the Gentiles, who,

though according to the truth of history she saw a little child, yet by the effect itself kept the power of prophecy. For the law presented to the church, as to Pharaoh's daughter, the synagogue as both nurse and mother of the infant; and so the spiritual order was preserved in the deeds. For it was fitting that Christ should be nursed according to the flesh by this, the law teaching it, and adopted by that one.

Grown up, Moses seeks his brothers held in servitude. Then he strikes down an Egyptian who was ruling and doing injury to one of them, and afterwards is rebuked by the very one whom he had avenged on the Egyptian. Did not Christ, when he was of complete and perfect age, visit his people, who are his brothers according to the flesh? For he came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Did he not strike down and conquer the devil who ruled them?

For no one will plunder the goods of the strong man unless he first binds the strong man. Was he not rebuked by these very people to whom he was giving both vengeance on the devil and freedom from servitude? So the imitation in the lawgiver follows the consummation of grace in God.

The bush burns in Moses' sight and yet is not consumed: that is, the church is set on fire by the flames of sins, persecutions, and temptations, as the Apostle says: "Suffering distress, enduring want, but we are not forsaken; we are cast down, but we do not perish; always carrying about in the body the sufferings of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus Christ may also be

manifested in our body." So the fires of all iniquities rage against us and do not burn us up.

Then a sign of faith is given: the rod changed into a serpent, and the serpent done away and changed back into a rod.

But this change is for the confirmation of faith, not for the conversion of nature. And because in the rod is the power of the kingdom and in the serpent the naming of the devil, we are admonished to believe in him who, from being God of the ages, was thought to be Beelzebul, and then, from being called and thought Beelzebul, through

the change of the resurrection, was recognized as God of the ages, which he was. The following sign fulfilled the truth of this by a figure of imitation, satisfying both hope and the time. For when the hand put into the bosom took on the whiteness of snow, it signifies that we, resting in the fathers' bosom, that is, of Abraham,

Isaac, and Jacob, are to be made bright, the nature of our body being swallowed up into the form of glory and honor. But when the hand, put into the bosom again, is restored to what it had been, it is taught that what was prefigured in the sign is not yet in time. And when, by the third sign, water taken from the river and poured on the ground became blood, the meaning of the sacrament is mingled with these things, since those washed by water are to pass over to the knowledge of the blood.

It is a great thing that, in what was done under the patriarchs, the effect of events is so contained that nothing in them disagrees, in place, time, or reasoning, with what was afterwards fulfilled in the Lord. For in this

the imitation sent ahead attains the figure of the complete truth, and is compared as the image of the form it imitates. For the deeds were indeed truth in themselves (for they were done according to bodily workings), but that very truth of human acts was an imitation of the divine working; and this was done so for the true instruction of our hope and faith, since nothing would be found in the things of God which had not been seen beforehand, as if premeditated, in the very ages, characters, and deeds of men.

For although it has been shown in all the preceding discourse that, up to the people's going out of Egypt, the deeds of Moses agree with deeds either in the Lord or through the Lord, yet even now a spiritual imitation is joined to bodily truth.

For in the desert the people thirsted; the water is bitter; there is murmuring against the leader; wood is shown, and by its dipping the water is made sweet; and in it justification, judgments, and testing are decreed.

And from there they come to twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and settle by the waters. Though the zeal of opponents may turn minds away, and the error of unbelievers may bar the sense of their understanding with the obstacle of disobedience, yet they will not be able to ignore the power of so great a work.

For what weight did the wood have in itself, or what efficacy did inanimate matter contain, that it should do away with bitterness, produce sweetness, both bring in and take away a nature, so that what was abhorred as harsh is perceived as sweet?

And though in what was done at the time there is the working of the power of God transferring a nature from one thing to another, yet he must not be thought to have needed the service of the wood, as though he could not give the change to the waters except by its intervention.

But because God could do all things, he works in the present a secret of his operation reserved for the times to come. For to the people staying in the desert the water was useless; and indeed we find peoples often named for waters, when it is said: "The waters saw you, O God, and were afraid"; and again: "All waters, clap your hands."

So whether the waters themselves were bitter by nature, or the whole people, staying in the desert and not yet about to obtain the land of promise, was bitter through the murmuring born of stubbornness, it is made sweet by the mystery of the wood. And it not only ceases to be what it was, but is changed into something better and beyond necessary use; for it not only ceased to be bitter,

but was made sweet. The wood, then, both works on the present water and, by the mystery of its power, is useful for the peoples named under the name of water.

On this wood, in the same Moses, the life of all hangs, when he says: "You will see your life hanging before your eyes night and day, and you will fear and will not believe in your life." This wood is put into bread in Jeremiah thus: "They devised a plan against me, saying:

Come, let us put wood into his bread." From this material is the rod that conquers the magicians, terrifies Pharaoh, crushes Egypt, divides the sea, pours back the deep, draws out a spring, removes bitterness, gives sweetness; for by its mystery are softened

the hearts of unbelievers and transferred from the bitterness of sins and impiety into the sweetness of faith. And lest all things should not agree, in the effects of the hidden mystery, with those that were then done, Scripture added, saying: "There God set justifications and judgments, and there he tested him." When "there" is said, it is a meaning not of place but of deed. For we do not find any arrangements of justifications, judgments, and testings existing in that place.

But on the contrary, in the mystery of the wood on which the Lord hung, to which he fastened with himself all that opposed the salvation of the human race, there is both justification, because the just is from faith; and judgments, because he who does not believe is already judged; and testing, because through the scandal of the cross is salvation;

for the cross is foolishness to those who perish, but the power of God for salvation to those who believe. So, since the reproach of the cross is the testing of faith, since unbelief is the cause of judgment, since faith is the reward of justification, rightly in the mystery of the wood that changes water from bitterness into sweetness are contained justification, judgments, and testing. [37.] "And they came to Elim, and there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees there; and they settled there by the waters." The spiritual arrangement is completed in the events done; for from Marah, the place of bitterness, they come to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees. After knowledge of the mystery of the wood, that is, of the apostolic and gospel preaching, a resting place is sought, with the seventy preachers giving shade for a time and the twelve apostles flowing for ever; and because the seventy preachers of the Gospel who were chosen were afterwards found unbelieving, though they had brought back the fruit of faith when the unclean spirits were subjected to them, while the apostles persevered in preaching the faith, therefore, though mention is made of the seventy trees with the twelve springs, yet according to the faithfulness of Scripture the rest is taken in the seat of the waters alone.

Now, in the flesh of the quails and the food of manna, how great and how complete is the meaning of a spiritual reality! The people, who had been led out of Egypt, murmur against their leaders; they long for the meat they used to eat in Egypt. A flock of quails flies in at evening and covers the camp; the people are fed with their flesh. In the morning manna is found.

Without distinction of age or sex, the same measure is set for each: he who gathers more has nothing over, he who stores less does not lack. In what was beyond need, worms seethed; and what remained of the manna left in the field melted when the sun grew hot.

On the sixth day a double portion is stored and does not spoil; on the seventh day the manna is withheld, though some wait for it in vain. Finally, an omer assigned to each is stored in a golden vessel and kept as a testimony for the generation to come.

And this too must be observed, that manna is given for testing, so that each one, by keeping its rules, may be proved whether he is fit for God's commandments. For it is written thus: "The Lord said to Moses: Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion

day by day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not." But of the meat it is said thus: "In the evening you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall be filled

with bread." Eating in the evening is signified in the flesh, but filling in the morning in the manna. What pertains to the flesh, then, is that the people remaining in the desert is held by the desire of habit; for it longs for the meat of Egypt. It takes it in the evening, that is, unfaithful to God and impatient of his promises until the consummation

of the age, which is signified by evening, with the desires of the world, which is often signified under Egypt. Finally, the people had this flesh only once, so that it might be taught that it was given not for necessary use but for the meaning of prefiguration. But in the manna there is testing; for by it the people is tested whether it will be obedient to God, that is, whether they will be worthy to take the true bread from heaven; and the reason of this testing must be sought from what follows.

It is found in the morning; for this, in the Lord's resurrection, is the time of the heavenly food. The same measure is fixed for every age and sex. According to human nature this is contrary (for when does a little child need as much food as a man?), but according to the spiritual prefiguration it is most fitting, since the heavenly food is imparted equally to all, undivided in power by its portions (for we speak the mystery to those who know), no one having more from the larger portions nor

lacking from the smallest, all being equally filled from what was taken divided into portions. But in what was gathered beyond measure and overflowed into the morning, which is worms and stench, there is no doubt that for those who have gathered unnecessary things beyond the heavenly gift and the spiritual teaching, these things are both foul in sense, that is, corrupted from the truth, and seething with the vices of demons, that is, restless with worms; and, when the sun grows hot, that is, when Christ, who is the sun of righteousness, returns to judgment, they will one day be dissolved into liquid.

In the double gathering of manna on the sixth day for the rest of the seventh, we are admonished to a heaped-up preparation of spiritual works, the good things prepared to be used when rest is present. Finally, what remains from the sixth day does not spoil, whereas what is beyond the measure of the other days stinks.

so too, for those things that are beyond what is prescribed, corruption is presumed. In this time of our age, then, we must work, so that we may have something to use in the rest. And the time is that of this sixth millennium, which is signified under the number of the sixth day, as the prophet says: "For a thousand years in the sight of the Lord are as one day."

So the people is fed on the seventh day, that is, in the Lord's rest, with food stored the day before, and uses what it had prepared, not about to find on the seventh day anything to be fed with, many going out into the field and finding nothing; that is, when the times of the ages are closed, we shall find nothing else for the use of our rest than what we have prepared and stored beforehand.

Then an omer of manna is ordered to be kept in a golden vessel before the Lord for the generations to come. But where at last is this vessel, and where is the manna that was stored, after the people's frequent captivities? After the twofold destruction of the city and the temple, what was laid up does not exist. And what then?

Do we think, then, that God did not know that the manna could not be kept for posterity? Certainly he, who foresees even the future plans of men, must not be believed not to have known; but by the figure of the golden vessel and of the manna stored before God and kept for future generations he showed that he would be precious and eternal who would keep in his body, as in a golden vessel, the manna he received, God watching over the undefiled keeping of this spiritual food received by us.

On Hosea. And in the book of the prophets another word of the Lord to Hosea is read: "Go, take for yourself a wife of fornication,

for the land will commit fornication away from the Lord." And after many things in between, full of cursing against her, and after the birth of Israel and of Not-loved and of Not-my-people, these things are found: "And I will make a covenant for them on that day with the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky and the serpents of the earth, and I will break bow and sword and war from the earth, and I will settle you in hope, (and I will betroth you to myself) for ever. I will betroth you to myself in righteousness and faith, and you shall know the Lord. And it shall be on that day, says the Lord: I will hear the heaven, and the heaven (will hear) the earth, and the earth will hear the grain and the wine and the oil, and they will hear Israel. And I will sow her for myself upon the earth, and I will love Not-loved, and I will say to Not-my-people:

You are my people." And, as I think, there is no room for hesitation in understanding here a prefiguration of the church, since the Apostle judged that what was said above to Hosea about the children of this harlot must be referred to the people of believers, saying to the Corinthians: "He called us not only from the Jews but also from the nations, as he says also in Hosea: I will call Not-my-people My-people, and Not-loved Loved; and it shall be that in the place where they were called Not-my-people, there they shall be called sons of the living God."

What was done bodily in the prophet, then, that is, marriage and begetting (for from the harlot three were born, of whom the first, by God's command, was named Israel, the next, a daughter, was called Loved, the third was called Not-my-people), is confirmed and carried out by God for spiritual understanding.

For this harlot joined to the prophet the Lord made his bride in righteousness and faith, making a covenant with the beasts of the field, that is, with men savage by the law of the world; and with the birds of the sky, that is, those living under the emptiness and vanity of this world; and with the serpents of the earth, namely those set in the body with a poisoned and deceitful mind; about to break the bow in the serpents, the sword in the birds, war in the beasts; by the kinds of weapons and the names of animals, about to tame in peace the various impulses of the human mind: the wars of beasts, the darts of flying things, the poisons of serpents.

In heaven hearing heaven and earth hearing earth he also signifies, in him who hears and in him who is heard, a difference in number, yet shows that what hears and is heard is the same, since heaven hears heaven and earth earth; the meaning being of divinity in heaven and of bodiliness in earth. And because the Lord was born man from God, and we, being from man, are to be conformed to God, therefore heaven will hear heaven and earth will hear earth.

But in the grain, wine, and oil which it will hear, though these insensible things

have no sense of hearing, yet he shows that it is he who will hear in them, under the sacrament of anointing and of the body. Through these, Israel hearing, he sowed the harlot betrothed to himself in hope, passing over the one who was named Israel and granting to the rest the honor of a change, so that he who was not his people should be his people, and she who was not loved should be Loved.

For Israel was chosen from the nations in Abraham his father, as is said in the Psalms: "the house of Jacob from a barbarous people." But lingering in sins and given over to vain religions,

and unfaithful to God's promises, it did not deserve to receive the effects of the promises, and, first chosen into God's people, it lost the honor of election. For nothing more is said of Israel, first born of the harlot, and God's whole word is about those born afterward, the earlier being rejected and removed from affection and ownership: born to be not loved, begotten to be not used. But first the harlot is chosen as a bride for God in faith and righteousness; then those not loved, those not his own, those born of the harlot, are called sons of the living God.

And this word of God, by which the prophet is ordered to take a harlot as wife, had to be recalled for this reason: since we are taught that all things are prefigured through the deeds of the Old Testament and are to be done in the Lord and through the Lord, by this very fact, that a harlot is joined to the prophet, we should understand it shown that Gentile ignorance is joined to the prophetic teachings, from which those born from the not loved would be called loved, from not-a-people a people, from a harlot mother sons of God. On Joshua son of Nun.

And though it was useful to have treated this for understanding the meaning of spiritual deeds, yet this passage was recalled by us chiefly for this reason: since we were going to speak of Rahab, in order to show that the church is prefigured in her, we might safely set down, according to our understanding, this comparison of the church and a prostitute, since the harlot joined to the prophet was found to be betrothed, for the prefiguring of the church, into the eternal hope of righteousness, faith, and knowledge of God.

And in this, that everything concerning her was done under Joshua, lies the greatest power of the prophecy. For in the naming of Joshua the complete reasoning of the future mystery was shown. For after God's long speech to Moses, when he had been told to make everything on earth according to the pattern he had seen on the mountain, he named Joshua, who before was called Hoshea, to be the future leader of the people going to the land of promise. Ordered to arrange all things after the pattern of the heavenly vision, Moses added to the future leader that name which was already prepared in heaven for the eternal leader.

For as this one was the leader of the synagogue, so that one is of the church. As this one was leader for obtaining the promised land, so that one is leader of the land to be inherited, of which the Lord says: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the land."

As this one came after Moses, so that one after the law. As to this one a second circumcision with a stone knife was commanded, so by the Lord, who is both the sharp word piercing to the division of the soul and the cornerstone, the circumcision of the heart was spiritually renewed. As this one divided the waters, so that one divides peoples; for he says: "I have not come to bring peace but division."

As this one both brought out twelve stones from the depth onto the land for an eternal testimony and placed others from the land in the depth, so that one both brought forth the apostolic teaching from the synagogue and left it in the synagogue, which would use it even now if it wished; since, for an eternal testimony in the twelve stones, the apostolic teaching was both brought forth from the law and yet was found in the law.

How evident and how complete is the very division of the waters, when one part stood whole and full, and the other, its bed

dried up, all flowed away into the sea, while the ark of the Lord with the priests was set in the middle! By this meaning it is understood that part of the people, at the coming of the ark of God, that is, at the bodily coming, will stand back from the course of its sins and of its death, while the rest flows down into the sea, that is, into the condemnation and fellowship of this world.

Under this Joshua, then, we must consider what was done by Rahab and in Rahab. For two spies, to spy out

the land and, in Jericho, the city, turned aside to the house of this prostitute. She receives them and hides them; when the king demands that she hand them over, she lies that they have gone back. Then, with them hidden in the house, she says that she knows that the Lord has delivered everything of her city to them, and that their God is God in heaven above and on earth below.

She begs them to save her and her whole house when the city is taken. The spies promise that whatever was found within her house would remain unharmed, and that whoever went out of the house would be (guilty) for himself; and they fix as a sign a scarlet cord hanging

from the window; and they report everything to Joshua. Then the city is approached. The priests with the ark of the Lord go round it for six days, and on the seventh day, when they had gone round seven times, as the trumpet sounded the walls of the city fell; and when all who were in the city had been killed, Rahab alone with her whole house is saved by Joshua.

This order of events is bound up with great mysteries to be carried out spiritually. The prostitute received in her house the two spies of the land sent by Joshua: the sinful church received the law and prophecy sent to spy out men's faith, through which God is confessed both in heaven above and on earth below. After his spiritual generation she learned the bodily birth to which they testified; for she learned in them: "After this he was seen on earth and lived among men."

From them she also received a sign of salvation in the scarlet, a color royal in dignity and blood-red in bodily meaning, both of which agree in the passion, since the Lord was clothed in such a garment, and blood flowed from his side.

This scarlet Manasseh also received as a sign; by this blood the houses marked in Egypt were safe, and the book of the covenant was sprinkled, and the people sanctified. And whoever of the household was found outside the house was made guilty for himself, teaching that those who were outside the church would be the cause of their own death.

Jericho, set as a figure of this world, is gone round for six days, falls on the seventh at the sound of the trumpet, and Rahab's house is preserved whole through Joshua.

For in the six days is shown the time of six thousand years, during which there has been wandering around the world and running round in a kind of circle of generations, this same world being dissolved at the sound of the trumpet in the seventh millennium; the church alone, by receiving the spies, by confessing God in the body, by the sign of the scarlet decreed through Jesus, to be preserved with all its household.

We have often admonished that diligence must be applied to the reading of the divine Scriptures, a diligence that could discern, with careful examination and sound judgment, when the recalling of past deeds should be understood simply and when typologically; lest, using both immoderately and unskillfully, we should make both useless to hearers, if either the knowledge of simple things were corrupted by an empty assertion of prefigurations, or the power of prefigurations were unknown under the opinion of simple things; although the word of the divine Scriptures is such that nothing is found there empty, nothing without the cause of some necessity, nothing set down without the requirement that we pursue its understanding.

For when the creation of the world is related, God is known in creating; when we hear that Enoch was translated, it is understood that man can be made eternal; when Lot is to be preserved after the five cities were burned up, we learn that God cares for the innocent; when his wife, looking back against God's command, is changed into a pillar of salt, we are trained by the fear of the example to obey God's ordinances; when the sins of the Amorites are waited on to be completed, we know both God's mercy and his justice, since by his waiting the time for us to cease from sins is extended, and vengeance is decreed, deferred to the completion of crimes.

Now then, the order of generations, the choosing of Abraham, the begetting of the patriarchs, the servitude of the people, the plagues of the Egyptians, the dividing of the sea, the raining of the manna, the giving of the law, the distinction of sacrifices, the time of the judges, the knowledge of the kingdoms, the people's deportation into captivity,

the vision of the saints, the admonition of the prophets: how necessary they are for knowledge! For in all those mentioned above God the Father and God the Son are recognized, and God the Son from God the Father, God and man, Jesus Christ: when in the creation of the world God commands and God makes; when man is formed after the figure of a common image; when the Lord rains sulfur and fire from the Lord (for no one would command himself to do something, nor would one alone extend his fellowship to another, nor would one give to himself and receive from himself); when a man is seen by Abraham and God is worshiped; when in Jacob's wrestling God is seen by a man; when, holding the man, he asks to be blessed by the Lord; when, three youths only having been cast into the furnace by Nebuchadnezzar, a fourth is seen like the Son of God; when the Virgin bears Emmanuel, who is God with us.

It was fitting, then, that these things, signified by all and known and fulfilled in that one man, should be kept in memory in written and sealed volumes, so that posterity, instructed by the deeds of the earlier time, might both contemplate present things in past ones and venerate past things even now in present ones.

For since the same is the perfect knowledge of the truth, if the truth is understood from reason (for all things were written for our knowledge and for the firmest assurance of our judgment), these things, which were recorded in the books by God's decision, did not need the knowledge of posterity.

But posterity needed the knowledge of the Scriptures, that it might learn the truth, that it might receive the teaching of truth from reason, that it might follow the knowledge of life carried forward as from the very cradle: namely, that it should not doubt God from God, since the Lord rained from the Lord; should not be ignorant of the one unbegettable God, since God commanded; should not be unaware of the only-begotten God, since God made; should not doubt that two are one, since one pattern of a common image was established in man; should not deny that God into man …

… born to the fathers. And it is easy to hear Paul glorying that he is an Israelite from the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin. Since, then, it is Elijah's office to turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons, the mystery of the perfect preaching is reserved for him, that he may turn the fathers to that faith which the spirit of the same prophecy has already confirmed in the sons.