Eclogae on Exodus through Judges

Contents

Reading pages: 281–395 · 397–803 · 805–943

1. 281The argument on the hardening of Pharaoh ends: God blames Pharaoh as free; then notes on Exod 3:21 and on the heart “strengthened”, “made heavy”, and “hardened”.
2. 283A wicked heart is called hardened, strengthened, and heavy in different senses; Moses' wonders are not magic; the Passover lamb is Christ, its blood is faith, and leaven is vice.
3. 285Leaven is the old vice to be cast out; the blood on the doorposts guards the soul's three parts; the Passover law on foreigners read of doctrines; the Passover is eaten in one house, the church.
4. 287Church teaching is not taken outside the church; spiritual circumcision of heart, ears, lips, eyes, and flesh; the stations of the exodus; the tristatai; God tests for our benefit.
5. 289God tests for good, the devil to destroy; the Sabbath read of the righteous man's rest from sin; Christ the rock; Exod 20:5 troubles Jews, Samaritans, and heretics alike.
6. 291The “fathers” whose sins are visited on the children are the devil and his spirits, whose working the sinner accepts; God visits the sinner himself to heal him.
7. 293To be left unpunished is God's abandonment; pray to be punished here; the kinds of law distinguished; the seventh-year release signifies freedom in Christ; the feasts cannot be kept literally by all.
8. 295The three feasts cannot be kept literally by builders and weavers; the month of new things means becoming new in Christ; to appear “not empty” is to be filled with God; the “male” are deeds of the Spirit.
9. 351An idol differs from a likeness: a likeness copies something real, an idol is the soul's invention, such as a centaur.
10. 395Notes on Leviticus 1: the book's name; the sacrifices are worthy of God when the law is read spiritually; “gifts” and “sacrifices”; God allowed sacrifices to wean Israel from idolatry.
11. 397Notes on Leviticus 4–10: unwilling sin; the “carcass” as one dead to God; the double gain of sacrifice; priests and bishops must be sober; the sin offering must be eaten.
12. 399Notes on Leviticus 10–13: priests must be cleansed first; clean animals read of the pious life; uncleanness trains the soul; leprosy and scars as wounds of sin that must not be hidden.
13. 401The leper's cleansing read of Christ: water and blood, the wood of the cross, scarlet for his blood, hyssop for the Spirit; the leprous house is the synagogue, for which the prophets plead.
14. 419Heretics who missed the hidden meaning of the law invented another God; but Scripture, like a human being, has body, soul, and spirit, and the same God gave law and Gospel.
15. 573Notes on Numbers 11–14: the name of the manna; the elders prophesied only once; the camp waited for Miriam; Joshua as a type of Christ; only the adults who sinned died in the desert.
16. 575Notes on Numbers 16–22: the censers; tithes and the priests' poverty; Moses' hidden grave; Israel wars by prayer, Balaam by curses; God, good by essence, cannot work evil.
17. 577Notes on Balaam: God came to him to avert the demons; God's power defeats magic; sacrifices were allowed to end sacrifice to demons; the donkey loosed by Christ's disciples; Peor and the two summits.
18. 579Balaam's oracles read of the Gentiles' conversion and of the soul: houses and tents, glens and gardens, lordship free from passion, the kingdom of Gog, and Christ called out of Egypt.
19. 581Christ the unicorn makes many “christs”; he feeds on the converted nations; Balaam devised Israel's sin at Peor; the land promised to Abraham was withheld for unbelief; tribal marriage and Christ's kingly and priestly descent.
20. 801Notes on Deuteronomy 1–3: the prophet voices what God reveals; Moses prepares the people to obey Joshua; the tribes beyond the Jordan.
21. 803Notes on Deuteronomy 3–8: the righteous wait for the promise; the visible voice at Sinai; Moses' hidden tomb; Egypt the house of slavery; the manna as the Word, fine, white, and seed-like.
22. 805The manna and the good land read of Christ and his gifts: bread, vine, oil, pomegranates, fig, honey, stones, and bronze; then the literal sense of the land's goodness, and warnings against forgetting God and against child sacrifice.
23. 807Notes on Deuteronomy 12–19: sin by excess and by defect; clean animals read of conduct and meditation on Scripture; feasts and assemblies distinguished; boundaries; the law of retaliation and Christ's teaching.
24. 809Notes on Deuteronomy 20–24: the fearful man; the rebellious son; mixed sowing and yoking read of the soul; sowing by every water as baptism; Moab's exclusion; the two millstones as the two covenants.
25. 811The millstones as old and new covenants; forty as a number of affliction; why no iron on altar stones; the tribes on Gerizim and Ebal; Moses' blessings.
26. 813Moses' blessing read of Christ: God comes from Paran with the saints, spares the Gentiles who were not a people, and rules them with Israel through the beloved Son.
27. 815Notes on Joshua 1–2: the promise depended on keeping the law; Rahab saved by faith, a symbol of the Gentile church; the spies let down from the wall like Paul.
28. 817Notes on Joshua 2–6: the number four signifies affliction; circumcision and the Sabbath were useful for a time, not good in themselves; the stone knife is Christ; Michael, the chief captain; the trumpets of the last day.
29. 827A damaged fragment: some readers see only the letter, like the body of Moses; others discern the meanings, the Moses who is with the angels.
30. 911The opening of an excerpt from Origen's homily on the lists of Joshua's allotments: their full benefit is for those who understand the true inheritance.
31. 913Scripture's names, even when not understood, work like incantations: they strengthen the good powers in us and put the hostile ones to sleep; all Scripture, being inspired, is useful.
32. 915Like food that improves the eyesight unnoticed, Scripture benefits the soul even from bare reading.
33. 943Notes on Judges: Jephthah's rash vow was his own, not the Spirit's; shibboleth; Samson's hair and Nazirite vow; ephod and teraphim; why Israel was first defeated by Benjamin.