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Cosmas Indicopleustes, Christian Topography (1897) pp. 138-243.  Book 5

BOOK V.

In which is contained a description of the Tabernacle, and in which the harmony is exhibited of the Prophets and Apostles. [192] 

F the Tabernacle which was prepared by Moses in the wilderness, it is now time to give a description, as we have received it from that most divine man and teacher. And having made divine scripture our ¹ starting point and accepted its testimonies, we begin with the exodus from Egypt, when the first-born of the Egyptians died, suffering the last of the plagues brought upon them through Moses----when also the Israelites, after having sacrificed, ate the Passover standing, having their loins girt, and holding staffs in their hands, ready prepared for their departure, on the first day of the first month at evening on the fourteenth day of the moon, which things were a shadow and type of the things that would be under the Lord Christ, namely, the deliverance from tyrannical bondage, the renovation of the world, accomplished by the resurrection from the dead, and |139 the everlasting rest into which men shall enter. For at that very season of the year the world appears to have been created by God, and to have had its beginning. Likewise also in the time of Noah after the Deluge, there was again at that season a beginning of the world. It was the season again when there took place the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt; and it was then also that there occurred the conception by the Virgin of the Lord Christ according to the flesh----of him who is the second Adam, the Chief Captain of the second state. In it again also occurred the resurrection from the dead of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh, and it is said further that the general resurrection also shall then take place. The pagans moreover bear witness to the season, thieves that they are, deeming it to be an opinion of their own, and regarding Aries as the beginning of the Zodiac circle. In this sign there is, according to divine scripture, the first month of the year, and herein is a clear proof of their being plagiarists, especially as they assign a beginning to a circle----an idea scouted even by themselves as ridiculous. In fact they have nothing that is good but what they have purloined from divine scripture; but being puffed up with pride, and wishing to set themselves up as quite superior persons, they use as their own what is the property of other people.

But that the Law serves the purpose of foreshadowing some things that are future the Apostle testifies, exclaiming: For the Law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things ²----speaking of a shadow as when one draws a rough sketch of a man without taking a full likeness of him, that is without representing his features and all his different members, so that it can be [193] known what sort of a man he is, whether old or young, |140 whether comely or uncomely, but merely sketches an outline of his bodily figure; so by what he calls an image he means the characteristic features, that is, the mysteries celebrated by us, namely the regeneration through baptism, and participation in the mysteries.³ But what he calls the real things themselves are the resurrection from the dead, the transformation of our bodies, the change from corruption to incorruption, the immutability of the soul instead of its mutability, perfect knowledge for that which is in part, an habitation, a rest, and an entrance into heaven, instead of earthly things heavenly, and instead of temporal things eternal. And all these boons have been secured for the human race through our Lord Jesus Christ. He therefore calls the Law the shadow of these things while the image and its characteristics are the mysteries celebrated by the Christians, as for instance, the lamb offered in sacrifice----a type of the Passion of Christ, in accordance with what the Apostle Paul says: For Christ our Passover was sacrificed;⁴ and John the Baptist thus speaks: Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.⁵ Then after this, for the Israelites of that time there was their deliverance from the destroying angel and from the bondage to Pharaoh; for us, our deliverance from the devil and from our bondage to the very burdensome law. Then for them, their passage through the sea |141 and their sojourning in the wilderness, and the giving of the law and the setting up of the Tabernacle; for us, our passage through baptism and our sojourning in the Church, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. For them, a copious supply of water from the rock to sustain their life; for us, the life-giving mysteries; for them, the land of promise as a place of rest; for us, heaven not made with hands as our place of rest; for them, temporal life; for us, life eternal and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption and blessedness. The former things therefore serve the purpose of a rough sketch, but those that are ours are the images and characteristic features of the things themselves. And we are not yet within the things themselves, but it shall come to pass that we shall rise from the dead; for no one, save only the Lord Christ in the flesh, has been within the things, having been the first of all to rise from the dead.

When the Egyptians were accordingly hastening the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, these carried away on their shoulders the flour itself, which with their hands they had kneaded into cakes without any leaven, and without the dough being baked. So when they had taken their departure and were drawing nigh to the Red Sea, the Egyptian Pharaoh who had repented and collected an army, pursued after them and overtook them near the sea opposite the encampment in the midst of Migdol and right opposite Beelsephon. Then evening at length coming on, the pillar of cloud or of fire, which always went before them and guided them on their way, that night came behind them and prevented the Egyptians from attacking [194] the Israelites. Then afterwards when the day was about to dawn, and when the Israelites cried to God, God commanded Moses to smite the sea with his rod and to divide it. Moses, having therefore done as he was commanded, smote the water and divided it, so that it stood up as a |142 wall on this side and on that side, and the Israelites passed through. But when the Egyptians with their chariots were in the midst of the sea pursuing the Israelites, the waters, driven by the anger of God, were turned back upon them and they were all overwhelmed in the sea and perished. Now that very place is in Clysma,⁶ as they call it, on the right hand as you go to the mountain, where also the tracks of the wheels of their chariots are visible, and can be traced for a considerable distance as far as the sea, and are preserved even to the present day, as a sign to unbelievers and not to believers.

Note. Regarding the conception of the Lord.

When Zacharias on the tenth day of the seventh month had gone into the temple, according to the tradition of the law, and it had been announced to him that John would be born to him by Elisabeth, word also came to the Virgin in Elisabeth's sixth month that her own first month had begun. For as Zacharias had received word on the tenth day of the month, and Elisabeth had conceived in that very month, it is evident that six months of the year had elapsed, and that six months were still left with the exception of those ten days, with two or three or seven others added, until Zacharias returned to his house, so that there would remain 161 or 167 or 163 days. The beginning therefore of the conception of the Lord, that is, the beginning of the first month, was Elisabeth's sixth month according to what is handed down in the Gospels. For God has always observed this order and continues to observe it. This we can know for certain, since |143 we all celebrate the Nativity of Christ when the ninth month has been completed, reckoned from the beginning of the first month, that is Choiac 28. But the Christians of Jerusalem, as if on the authority of the blessed Luke, who says that Christ was baptised when he began to be thirty years of age,⁷ celebrate his nativity on Epiphany.⁸ And both the evangelist and they of Jerusalem say what is true, but their reckoning is not accurate, for on the day of his nativity fell also his baptism, as both Luke and the Christians of Jerusalem say. But from ancient times the Church, lest by observing the two festivals together one of them should be forgotten, ordained that twelve days, after the number of the Apostles, should be interposed, and that the Feast of Epiphany should then be celebrated; just as it also ordained that the fast of forty days, which the Lord endured before he entered on his contest with the devil, should be concluded by the resurrection of the Lord, in order that we also, taking example, should by fighting to the utmost of our power and imitating him, become recipients of the [195] Passion and the Resurrection of the Lord, although the fasting did not take place on the self-same days. In like manner the Church therefore ordained that the Epiphany of our Lord Jesus should be observed twelve days subsequent to his nativity. But the Christians of Jerusalem alone, guided by probable conjecture but inaccurate calculation, celebrate his birth at Epiphany. But on his birthday they celebrate the memory of David and the Apostle James----not because they both died on that very day, but all, as I think, celebrate their memory lest they should remain excluded from the feast dedicated to all who were kinsmen of Christ according to the flesh, while glorifying God in all things. Amen!

The passage of the Israelites into the Desert after their departure from Egypt.

When the Israelites passed over to the other side to the place called Phœnicôn ⁹ they began to traverse the desert of Sur (Shur), God expanding a cloud over them by day to protect them from |144 the scorching heat of the sun, and guiding them in it, while by night he appeared in a pillar of fire and led them on their way through all the wilderness, as it is written: He spread a cloud for a covering: and fire to give light in the night.¹⁰ And all this can be thus depicted.¹¹

Then again setting out from Merrha (Marah) they came to Elim which we now call Raithu, where there were twelve springs of water which exist to the present day.¹² But at that time the number of palm-trees was far greater than it is now. Up to this point they had the sea on their right hand, and on their left the wilderness, but thenceforth they advanced into the interior towards the mountain, leaving the sea behind them as they marched forward into the wilderness. When they were half way between Elim and the Mount Sinai, then the manna descended upon them, and there for the first time they observed the Sabbath, according to the commands which God gave to Moses at Marah, but not in writing. This also you can see thus depicted.¹³

When they had advanced to Elim from Marah, and had again journeyed into the wilderness in that place half way between Elim and Mount Sinai, the quails descended upon them at evening, and the manna in the morning. There again they began to keep the Sabbath, the manna not corrupting from the sixth day till the Sabbath, while on the other days it could not be kept, but it stank and was corrupted, and they were thereby taught to observe the Sabbath; for some wished to gather it even on the Sabbath but did not find it, according to what is recorded.

Then again they pitched in Raphidin (Rephidim), in what is now called Pharan (Paran). And when they thirsted, Moses according to the commandment of the Lord went with the elders [196] (and his rod was in his hand) to Mount Horeb, which is in Sin near Pharan, being only about six miles off. And when he had there struck the rock, abundance of water gushed out, and the |145 people drank, as David in the Psalms exclaims: He clave the rock in the wilderness and gave them drink as out of the great depths;¹⁴ and again: He opened the rock and the waters gushed out; they ran in the dry places like rivers;¹⁴ and again: He brought water out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.¹⁵ But the Apostle says: For they drank of that spiritual rock which followed them, and that rock was Christ;¹⁶ by which he meant that, just as the flood of water from the rock which followed them gave them without stint water to drink, so Christ supplies to us life-giving waters, through the mysteries of which the rock was a type. And in that place again, they routed Amalek in battle, and there also Iothôr (Jethro) met his son-in-law Moses, to whom he brought his two sons and his wife; for Moses had sent back to him his wife and his children.

This hiatus is followed by a citation of the Ten Commandments.

Text.

Then when he had come down from the Mountain he was ordered by God to make the Tabernacle, which was a representation of what he had seen in the Mountain, namely an impress ¹⁷ of the whole world. For see, said He, that thou make all things according to the pattern shown thee in the Mount.¹⁸ Now the blessed Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews has declared that the first Tabernacle was a pattern of this world, for he says: For the first had also ordinances of divine service and a worldly sanctuary; for there was a tabernacle made; the first wherein was the candlestick, and the table and the shew-bread, which is called the Sanctuary.¹⁹ In calling it worldly [197] he indicated that it was, so to speak, a pattern of the world, wherein was also the candlestick, by this meaning the luminaries of heaven, and the table, that is, the earth, and the shew-bread, by this meaning the fruits which it |146 produces annually: which, he says, is called the Sanctuary, by this meaning the first Tabernacle. Afterwards he speaks of the second in these terms: We have such an high priest who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man;²⁰ and again: But Christ being come a high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us;²¹ and again: for Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.²² In this last passage he says that heaven is the true tabernacle, while the things which were prepared by Moses are antitypes. He therefore calls the things of Moses things made by hands, but the real things not made with hands. Having then been commanded to make the Tabernacle he made it according to the pattern which had been shown to him, and also its appurtenances according to their pattern, the Ark of testimony, and the Mercy-seat above, and the two Cherubim stretching out their wings, and overshadowing the Mercy-seat above, and in like manner the veil and the table and the candlestick, and the hangings of the Tabernacle (namely the first coverings) and curtains made of goats' hair (that is stypta ²³) and these again were the second coverings of the Tabernacle. In like manner also the third coverings made of skins dyed red and sky-blue, that is, of what is |147 called leather, and all things cunningly worked and wonderful. We have depicted the Tabernacle thus.²⁴

Note.

We must here again observe that he (Paul) speaks of the Tabernacle which was pitched by God, namely heaven, as the true. Moreover he calls heaven that perfect Tabernacle not made with hands, as it was created by God. For he calls the Tabernacle which Moses prepared made with hands. And further in contrast with the Tabernacle prepared by Moses, he calls the other the true, because it abides for ever, while the former is dissolved. Then again he calls the curtains αὐλαία, and it is thus the pagans who use the Attic dialect call them, meaning by αὐλαία a large and variegated piece of tapestry. Hyperides the orator ²⁵ in his speech against Patrocles speaks thus: But the nine Archons were feasting in the portico, having fenced off that part of it from being seen, by [198] means of an αὐλαια (or curtain). Menander also uses the word [in the line]: Στυπτει̃ον, ἐλέφαντα, μύρον, οἰ̃νον, αὐλαίαν.

The twenty pillars are twenty boards standing upright, one cubit and a half being the breadth of each of the boards, so that in the twenty pillars there are thirty cubits, and this is the length of the Tabernacle. But their sockets were double within and without, being placed on both sides of the board, and the sockets were of silver. The capitals again were simple but of gold, and in like manner the boards and the bars and the tenons. The tenons were two planks joined together and overlaid with gold and nailed to each board, turned to and falling against each other, in order that they might bind together all the boards. And the tenons and the bars, which passed through the rings called psalides, bound the whole Tabernacle securely together; but the fifth bar in the middle was not borne up by passing through the rings, but was made to pass through the boards for the greater safety of the Tabernacle. The height again of each board was eleven cubits, and the breadth of the Tabernacle was likewise |148 eleven cubits, and the wall opposite to this wall was similar to it. When the veil of the temple was rent in twain at the Passion of the Lord three things were indicated by this circumstance. First it proved the audacity of the Jews against the Lord, the divine temple, as it were, mourning and rending its garments; next, it showed the approaching dissolution and abolition of the Judaic ritual, by the taking away of the first Tabernacle; and it showed thirdly that the inner Tabernacle, which was invisible and inaccessible to all, and even to the priests, had become visible and accessible to men. Glory for all to Christ the King for ever and ever, Amen!

Text.

Here is a delineation of the Tabernacle without its pertinents. Its first coverings were woven of diverse colours, blue and purple and fine-twined linen, and scarlet, as was also the veil ²⁶ which scripture calls hangings. And they were of similar length with the curtains.²⁷ The length of a curtain was eight and twenty cubits, and its breadth four cubits. But he says that five curtains were coupled together one to another, and likewise other five curtains, and that the couplings of the five with the five from the middle at the edge of the one set were loops, and at the edge of the other, clasps. And they put the clasps into the loops, and fastened the ten curtains together just as what are called sigistropylai, the bags for holding slaves' bedding,²⁸ or saddle-bags, are fastened.²⁹ But when they marched carrying the Tabernacle with its furniture, the five curtains were detached from the other five and were carried separately. This they did also in the case of the coverings of the second Tabernacle, which were made of goat's hair woven, and were called [199] leather screens.³⁰ They were eleven in number, each being thirty cubits long, and thirty also broad. Five of them |149 were coupled together, and likewise the other six. They were joined together by clasps and loops, and the whole of them again became one. The length of the Tabernacle was therefore thirty cubits. For there were twenty pillars, that is, boards; each of which was one cubit and a half in breadth, thus making altogether thirty cubits. Then also there were the six pillars, each of them one cubit and a half in breadth, making nine cubits. Then there were at the corners two pillars of one cubit and a half each, and thus there were eight pillars of ten [twelve] cubits collectively, and these were made secure with bars on all sides. The ten curtains accordingly, when conjoined, made a breadth of forty cubits, and covered all the length of the Tabernacle, and the wall at the back which was ten cubits in height, altogether forty cubits. But the curtains, which together were eight-and-twenty cubits long, covered the breadth of the Tabernacle which was ten cubits. The two side-walls were ten cubits in height, the others twenty cubits, making together thirty cubits. There were besides curtains of eight-and-twenty cubits, and with the exception of one cubit, these covered the one wall, and also the other wall with the exception again of one cubit; but the screens of leather covered the other two cubits; for they were each thirty cubits in length, while the one leather screen which remained over was let down for the door of the Tabernacle. We therefore delineate their appearance along with the three coverings of skins and they are as you see.³¹

Note.

Here Moses, after he had been privileged to witness the terrible scenes on the Mount, is commanded by God to make the Tabernacle according to the pattern which he had seen in the Mount, this being a pattern of the whole world. For see, saith He, that |150 thou make all things according to the pattern which was shown thee in the Mount.³² Since therefore it had been shown him how God made the heaven and the earth, and how on the second day he made the firmament in the middle between them, and thus made the one place into two places, so he, in like manner in accordance with the pattern which he had seen, made the Tabernacle and placed the veil in the middle, and by this division made the one Tabernacle into two, an inner and an outer. The Apostle therefore declared the outer to be a pattern of this world, saying thus: For the first Tabernacle had ordinances of divine service and a worldly sanctuary. For there was a Tabernacle prepared, the first, wherein were the candlestick and the table and the shew-bread [200] which is called the Holy place,³³ as if he said, it exhibits a pattern of the world, in which are the earth, and the monthly fruits and the luminaries (of heaven). And then when explaining the second Tabernacle he speaks thus: But Christ having come a high priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more perfect Tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the Holy place having obtained eternal redemption;³⁴ as if he said: Just as the high priest once a year enters into the inner Tabernacle through the blood of goats and calves, making propitiation for the people, so also Christ entered into the Tabernacle not made with hands, that is, into heaven, having once for all procured eternal redemption. And again: For Christ is not entered into the Holy place made with hands which is an image of the true, but into heaven itself; and again he says: For the law had a shadow of good things to come;³⁵ for, as in an outline, by the inner Tabernacle he has signified the ascension of Christ after the flesh, and the entrance into it of just men. Wherefore he again admonishes us in these words: Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the Holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having a great high-priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart;³⁶ and again in declaring that Christ is in heaven he says: Whom God set forth to be a propitiation by his blood;³⁷ since the |151 Propitiatory (Mercy-seat) was placed within the second Tabernacle. And many other such references are contained in the Epistles of the Apostle, and throughout divine scripture.

But perhaps again some one will still ask: Why did Moses ordain that the entrance to the Tabernacle should be in the east, and that the inner Tabernacle, that is the Holy of Holies, should be in the west? Such an enquirer will be answered very concisely, that since he was commanded by God to make the whole Tabernacle as an image of the whole world, according to the pattern shown to him in the Mount, he so made it, and at the same time has recorded that God, when he had created man, introduced him into the world in the east, and so commanded him, when in course of time he had increased and multiplied, to extend himself and to fill the earth towards the west. For this reason the door of the Tabernacle was placed in the east. And further, since the Tabernacle was an image of the heavenly mansions, at the end of the times it was determined that, through the high priest and the universal King our Lord Jesus Christ, it should be declared that the last dispensation had come. And since the human race had its origin in the east, and in the course of its progress advanced westward as it multiplied, for this reason the [inner] Tabernacle, as being the second and placed last, looked [201] towards the west. From this circumstance also the Church has a tradition that Christians everywhere when worshipping God should turn towards the cast, as it was there that He was first manifested to men. For she remembered the days of old, and now renders thanks to Him who has multiplied and extended the human race from the east unto the west. But the Jews, whose notions of the Deity were too anthropomorphic, worshipped God towards Jerusalem, where the temple stood.³⁸ On this point we can gain light from the story of Daniel, who, when he had opened the window of his chamber which looked towards Jerusalem, worshipped with his face turned towards the temple. One who finds himself in a place lying to the east of Jerusalem turns as a matter of course to the west when he worships; but if he be in the west, he turns to the cast, if in the north to the south, and |152 if in the south to the north, so that in a manner the four are shown as facing each other when worshipping. But the practice of the Christians is different, for in one and the same manner they offer to God, as being uncircumscribed, one spiritual worship with faces turned eastward, since it was from the east that in the beginning He was manifested to them, and that He multiplied them towards the west. To Him be glory for ever, Amen!

The seven lamps, tongs,³⁹ and oil-vessels.

This candlestick which had seven lamps and stood in the south of the Tabernacle ⁴⁰ was a type of the luminaries, for, according to the wise Solomon, the luminaries rising in the east and running to the south, shine upon the north of the earth, and again, they are seven after the number of days in a week, seeing that all time, beginning with weeks, completes both months and years. He ordered them, however, to be lighted on one side, since the table was placed towards the north, in order that their light might from the south shine on the north; for Solomon speaks thus with reference to the luminaries: The sun ariseth and goeth towards the south and moveth round to the north; the wind whirleth about continually and returneth again according to its circuits.⁴¹ Thus both Solomon and Moses have expressed themselves alike concerning the luminaries, in their general relations.

Note.

The table itself ⁴² is a type of the earth, and the loaves signify its fruits, and being twelve they are symbolic of the twelve months of the annual cycle. The four corners of the table signify the four tropics of the year, one occurring every three months; the waved border with which it is wreathed all round signifies the entire sea, or the ocean, as it is called by the pagans; and the crown which is round it indicates the earth that [202] lies beyond the ocean where Paradise is.

Text.

The veil again he ordered to be made of blue and purple and fine linen and scarlet, variegated like the four elements, |153 or perhaps in order to produce a beautiful effect. For they were made evidently to serve not only for symbols, but evidently also for decorative and liturgical purposes. And he placed the veil in the middle of the Tabernacle, which he thus divided into two places. In the inner place was set the Ark of the Propitiation, which was concealed behind the veil, and was not seen by any one. The Propitiatory was a type of the Lord Christ according to the flesh, as saith the Apostle: Whom God set forth to be a propitiation by his blood;⁴³ and again the high priest was himself a type of the Lord Christ, according to the Apostle: For, saith he, just as the high priest once a year entereth into the inner Tabernacle, so Christ, having come a high priest of the good things to come through his own blood, entered in once for all into the Holy place, having obtained eternal redemption,⁴⁴ as methinks I have frequently mentioned. Here is a delineation of the Ark of propitiation [or the Mercy-seat].⁴⁵

Note.

Zacharias then and Abia were both of them priests who alternately year by year entered into the temple to effect the remission of sins. It fell accordingly to the lot of Zacharias at the time of the Lord's conception to be exercising the priest's office; and having entered, as Luke records: He saw a vision of an angel which also said unto him: Fear not, Zacharias, because thy supplication is heard, and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son;⁴⁶ as if he had said, "Thou hast entered here to ask for the people remission of their sins, lo! I bring to you the good tidings that your prayer will be fulfilled, for there shall be born to thee a son by Elizabeth to be the forerunner of Him who of his grace will bestow upon the world a complete remission of their sins." John himself verily, pointing out with his finger the Lord Christ, exclaimed: Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world,⁴⁷ as if he said: Him who takes away and abolishes |154 mortality and corruption and mutation, and makes us immortal and incorruptible and immutable and no longer capable of sinning.

Text.

The court of the Tabernacle had a length of one hundred cubits with twenty pillars, and a breadth of fifty cubits with twelve pillars. But to form the breadth of the Tabernacle on the east He ordered that there [203] should be three pillars on this side, and three on that side, and that the veils like vestures of fine linen, alone measuring fifteen cubits, should be stretched over the three pillars. He ordered further that the four other pillars should be made the gate of entrance into the court, and that the veils should be variegated with four colours. But all the veils of the court were to be made of fine linen and of that alone. They were five cubits in height and were furnished with loops and pegs and cords, on which were stretched the coverings of the Tabernacle and the veils of the court. And the whole structure of the Tabernacle was at once awe-inspiring and of highest excellence. I must therefore to the best of my ability delineate these also, representing them in the form of what are called pavilions.⁴⁸

Concerning the garments of the priest.

The garments of the priest were the following: an embroidered tunic, and an ephod and a long robe and a turban and a girdle and a mitre and a plate, two shoulder-pieces ⁴⁹ for the shoulders of the priest joined together the |155 one to the other and with the ends folded back from the left to the right and from the right to the left, and covering the bareness of his neck. These shoulder-pieces were interwoven with threads of gold and wrought and variegated with genuine purple, and with a blue dye and fine linen and scarlet. In the shoulder-pieces upon the two shoulders were set two stones of emerald ⁵⁰ on which were engraved the names of the twelve tribes, six names on one stone and six on the other. But the oracular plate of judgment,⁵¹ which was woven, was a square piece of cloth of a palm's breadth, doubly wrought with gold thread, variegated in the weaving with the four colours already mentioned, and set with four rows of stones, three stones being in each row, so that they were twelve in all.⁵² The stones were enchased in gold, and were inserted in the oracular plate of judgment, and each of them had engraved upon it the name of one of the twelve tribes. He ordered also two small shield-shaped clasps of gold ⁵³ to be placed |156 upon the two shoulders in the front, and fringes intertwined with gold and coloured tissues, to depend from these, and the oracular plate to hang suspended thereby upon the breast; as well as by means of two wreathen chains of gold drawn back from the two sides of the oracular plate underneath, and fastened together behind alternately at the two tips of the two shoulder-pieces at the back of the priest, so that the wreathen chains might be on the back of the priest, and serve to join diagonally the oracular plate to the shoulder-pieces before and behind. The undergarment was all of a blue colour, from the breast down to the ankles,⁵⁴ where a border was woven with it. But the hem underneath, being widened by a fringe of various colours, had golden bells and golden pomegranates adorned with flowers suspended around it, and so disposed that a bell alternated with a pomegranate. He had also a turban of fine linen,⁵⁵ and a girdle of various colours which at the top girt the under garment around under the breast. The [204] priest wore the mitre on his forehead, and above the mitre a blue lace, having on its border a gold plate, on which was the seal of Holiness to the Lord,⁵⁶ namely, what is called a tetragram, and thus arrayed he entered into the Holy place. He wore also to cover his legs linen drawers ⁵⁷ from his loins to his thighs for the sake of decency. The figure of the priest moreover can be thus delineated.⁵⁸  |157 

It is evident therefore that the different parts of the attire were types of certain things, and that they were intended both for ornament and to impress the mind with awe; for instance, the two stones of emerald which the priest wore on his shoulders, on which were the names of the twelve tribes, signify the twelve tribes which were descended from one ancestor Abraham, for this is shown by the fact that the emerald stone had been made into two, that there might be one for each shoulder. But he ordained that on the shoulders of the priest should be laid the burden of the twelve tribes, as it was he who wore the stones and went into God's presence on behalf of the tribes. But the oracular plate which was worn on the breast and was twofold, signifies the soul and the body. It was therefore twofold, and was placed upon the heart. The twelve stones were different from each other, because each man has his own peculiar mode of thinking, and because there were so many different tribes. Then, as there was one [common] ancestor, he commanded one stone, an emerald, to be set upon the shoulders, as one ancestor. But because the tribes and the ways of thinking are different, he commanded different stones to be placed upon the breast. And on the plate of the seal of Holiness to the Lord, which was on the forehead, he says that there were letters engraved. These letters formed the name of God, and what is called in Hebrew the tetragram. In fine, the other things were designed to please the eye by reason of their beauty. But the golden bells and the pomegranates were made to produce sound, a symbol by which the priest was instructed that he should not presume to enter into the Holy place until he had made the sound to be heard. For just as one who intends going into the presence of men of exalted rank, when he finds no one to announce him, begins to knock, not daring to enter without warning, so here the priest is enjoined to advance with the bells and |158 set them ringing.⁵⁹ And such is our description of the Tabernacle and of the priest

A cloud by day rested over the Tabernacle and fire by night, in the sight of all Israel as often as they resumed their march----according to what is recorded in scripture----and when merchants, chiefly Ishmaelites and Midianites, came to them with their loads, all their wants were through divine providence abundantly supplied, as is written in [205] Deuteronomy ii, 7, and viii, 4; and also xxix, 5, where it is said: He hath led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes were not waxen old upon you, and your shoes were not worn off upon your feet; for it is not the fact, as some marvelmongers, and especially they of the circumcision, have supposed, that their garments and shoes did really and truly not wear away, though Moses seems to say so, while, what he means is, that they lacked for nothing in the desert, since the merchants continually brought them necessary supplies; for how was it possible for the children born to them in the wilderness to wear the garments and shoes of their fathers, who were full-grown men while they were very small? And how could they have been ordered to make every day the twelve new loaves of shew-bread, unless the merchants had brought them corn? For ye know that with regard to this matter they murmured, saying: Is he able to give us bread also, or to prepare a table for his people? ⁶⁰ Or how could they have procured the fine flour for making the cakes, or the skins for making the scarlet and blue leather curtains of the Tabernacle, unless they had purchased them from the merchants? And because, while the merchants, through the providence of God, supplied their wants, they still murmured both |159 against God and against Moses, even though they possessed the wealth of the Egyptians, he wrought wonders for them, ungrateful and unbelieving as they were, supplying them now with abundance of water from the rock, now with manna from heaven, now with quails from the sea for thirty days----and further, in teaching them to curb their lusts, he chastised them with plagues, at one time consuming a portion of their encampment with fire, at another visiting with death four and twenty thousand of them, at another sending serpents among them, while at yet another, under the wrath of heaven, the earth swallowed up the company of Dathan, Abiram and Korah, with all their families and their cattle, thus teaching them not to be distrustful and ungrateful to God, but to live soberly. And when they had received the law from God in writing, and had learned letters for the first time, God made use of the desert as a quiet school, and permitted them for forty years to carve out letters on stone. Wherefore, in that wilderness of Mount Sinai, one can see, at all their halting-places, all the stones, that have there been broken off from the mountains, inscribed with Hebrew letters, as I myself can testify, having travelled in these places. Certain Jews, too, who had read these inscriptions informed me of their purport, which was as follows: The departure of so and so of such and such a tribe, in stick and such a year, in such and suck a month, just as with ourselves there are travellers who scribble their names in the inns where they have lodged. And the Israelites, who had but newly acquired the art of writing, continually practised it, and filled a great multitude of stones with writing, so that, all those places are full of Hebrew inscriptions,⁶¹ which, as I think, |160 have been preserved to this day for the sake of unbelievers. [206] Any one who so wishes can go to these places and see for himself, or at least can enquire of others about the matter, when he will learn that it is the truth we have spoken. When the Hebrews therefore had been at the first instructed by God and had received a knowledge of letters through those tables of stone, and had learned them for forty years in the wilderness, they communicated them to their neighbours the Phoenicians, at that time first when Cadmus was King of the Tyrians, from whom the Greeks received them, and then in turn the other nations of the world.

The Israelites encamped in the desert, arranged in an order prescribed by God, as thus: the priests and the Levites encircled the Tabernacle and the twelve tribes were disposed around them----three on the east side of the Tabernacle, the tribe of Judah with Moses and Aaron being in the middle, as that tribe had the precedence of the others. Then there were three tribes on the south, three on the west, and three on the north side. And in this order they halted----and still observing it resumed their march, and went forward in the manner here represented.

In this manner then they encamped each day in the desert until at last when Moses and Aaron were dead, and Jesus the son of Nanê (Joshua the son of Nun) had obtained the leadership, and in a miraculous manner had |161 conducted them over the Jordan, he gave them for inheritance the land of promise in accordance with divine predictions and arrangements. Then the tribe of Judah obtained the Metropolitan city of Jerusalem, until from that tribe He should come forth who was expected and foretold by the law and the prophets----He through whom God wrought the great and eternal salvation and renovation for the world----I speak of the Lord Christ according to the flesh----according, that is, to the promises made by God to Abraham, and according to his purpose from the very beginning, as the Apostle also says in the Epistle to the Galatians, where, as if in answer to the question What then is the law? meaning, Why was the law given? he at once replies and says: It was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise hath been made; and it was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator;⁶² whereby he means, that the reason why the law was added was this, that by means of it and of the priesthood the people which had received the promise should be under safe guardianship----the people, namely, sprung from Abraham----and that there should be no intermixture of this people with any other; so that thereby he who had been foretold might be recognisable by all----he, by whom the world is being renovated, and by whom also the purpose and economy which God had from the first designed is being fulfilled. For it was the purpose of God from the very beginning to make others participants of existence, and to give them a share of his goodness----reason and knowledge and immortality and blessedness, and of every good thing as far as the capacity of the participant might admit. And since the Deity, being by intuition in possession of all true knowledge, cannot be [207] taught, while it is the proper nature of the brute creatures |162 to be moved by instinctive impulses without reason and true knowledge; and while again in like manner inanimate objects are altogether destitute of self-motion, of instinctive impulse, and of knowledge, God, having in his goodness been pleased to make, what was possible, an intermediate class of beings, endowed with reason and capable of acquiring knowledge by teaching and experience, subjected them to probation, and in accordance with his purpose from the beginning, made the future state, that is, the place on high. So when in the first place he had set apart this present state, employing it as a school suitable for our needs, he made it mortal and mutable, in order that we, possessing the power of judging and reasoning, might enjoy our share of its blessings, and avoid its evils. Wherefore also the present dispensation has its joys and its sorrows, that we, who are every day living in the midst of them, might shun the one, and adhere to the other. For the same reason laws have been ordained, accompanied by threats and chastisements, to curb our vicious appetites; and lastly, death itself, which seems a token of his anger, but which in reality brings to a close this troubled life and our term of discipline, just as God also in his providence brought it upon the first man, to make his sin hateful to him and to make righteousness the object of his desires, thus encouraging him and all through him, to enter into the life prepared for us beforehand, and into the eternal Kingdom, and into righteousness, sanctification, redemption and blessedness, which the purpose of God from the beginning contemplated. God accordingly, as if moved by anger, wisely, yea most wisely, inflicted death upon the first-made man on account of his sin, that he might render sin a thing hateful to him. Then again afterwards, in order that the man might not sink into despair under his misery, he took care of him as a father takes care of his child, and made raiment for him. Then he avenged the blood of |163 Abel, and translated Enoch, that the sentence of death might have no power over him; he saved Noah from the shipwreck of the world; he chose Abraham by whom and his seed he accomplished the renovation of the world, Isaac also and Jacob, the patriarchs, and the children of these, and the twelve tribes sprung from them, which with a high hand he redeemed from Egyptian bondage and guided miraculously through the wilderness, and presented with a written law; and when he had distributed the nation into ranks of war, he gave them the land of Palestine distributed into lots; and he raised up for them prophets, David their first king, and Samuel, the great Elijah, his disciple Elisha, the twelve prophets, and the four great prophets who foretold the coming of the Lord Christ, who was to arise from among them according to the flesh, in whom and through whom is, and is fulfilled, God's purpose from the beginning, and his great scheme of salvation. For just as he ordained to introduce death on account of [208] the sin of the first man, so also, through the obedience of the Lord Christ according to the flesh, he ordained the resurrection and the renovation and the gathering together of the whole creation. For, as Paul says, as by man came death, so by man the resurrection from the dead ⁶³ has been brought into the world. This is the great salvation, and dispensation and wisdom of God, who has produced all things and has again restored them. Wherefore also he made the two states from the beginning, and the whole scope of divine scripture has regard to the future life which succeeds this present life, as have also the Christian preaching and the hope of the Christians. For this reason in baptism the rite is not administered to any one unless he first confess his belief in the Holy Trinity and the resurrection of our flesh. Without doing this, he is neither |164 accounted a Christian, nor pronounced to be one of the faithful. This is the scope of the whole of the divinely inspired scriptures both of the Old and of the New Testament, pointing out that, according to the pattern of the Tabernacle prepared by Moses in the wilderness, God made the whole world into two places, this world, namely, in which he thought fit that we, mortal and mutable creatures, should first spend our days as at school, and have experience of pain and of pleasure, for without education it is not possible there can be learning. For no chastening, saith scripture, seemeth for the present to be joyous but grievous:⁶⁴ On those accordingly, who have been rationally tested, he" has decreed to bestow afterwards in the future state his good things that are everlasting, and to fulfil what has been his primary purpose from the beginning----having taken, as God, a providential care of what concerns us, as became him, and as was for our advantage. We sketch the encampment ⁶⁵ of the Israelites in the wilderness, and their passage of the Jordan with Joshua the son of Nun after the death of Moses, and their rest in the land of promise, and Jerusalem, and how they got the land by lot and how they held it in possession.

While they dwelt in this land God at times raised up prophets to announce the advent of the Lord Christ according to the flesh, through whom the future state was to be revealed, while they also called to the remembrance of the people the promises which God gave to Abraham Let us therefore sketch each of the men of old and each of the prophets, to show how each of them was thought |165 worthy to predict something about the coming of the Lord Christ, whether recording it by means of his words or by means of his deeds ---- if only he be deemed worthy to speak or do anything with reference to him, for this is in consonance with the argument of our work, wherein we would show from first to last what is the purpose which all divine scripture ever keeps in view.

Adam.

This is Adam,⁶⁶ the first-made man, who was held worthy [209] to make a prediction concerning himself and his wife, who with the divine benediction were both through copulation united into one flesh, to which the Lord bears witness in the Gospels, saying that God had spoken this by the mouth of Adam, unto whom he had himself brought his bride; and the Apostle Paul has used this as an illustration, explaining it in a mystical manner, concerning the Lord Christ and the Church, saying: This mystery is great, but I speak of Christ and of the Church.⁶⁷ For just as Adam is the head of all men in this world, as being the cause of their existence, and their father, so also the Lord Christ according to the flesh is the head of the Church, and the father of the future age. Adam also was the first who had the honour to be, and to be called, the image of God, but with respect to the Lord Christ, this is in a still higher degree the case, as the Apostle says: Who is the image of the invisible God.⁶⁸ Adam again was the first and only one of men who from his side, through God, produced the female without seed, and the Lord Christ according to the flesh was, as a male, produced from the female without seed, thus preserving the equality of privilege and satisfying the debt of nature.⁶⁹ Adam was the first of men who |166 sinned, having been beguiled by the devil. The Lord Christ on his account paid the debt, having opportunely annulled the bond and trampled the. enemy under his feet.

Note.

In the first epistle to the Romans the Apostle has declared Adam to be a type of Christ, saying: Who is a figure of him that was to come;⁷⁰ and in like manner he has called Adam the first man, and Christ the second. Since God threatened the first man with death that very day should he transgress the commandment, and yet when he did transgress did not immediately visit him with death in accordance with the threatening, but was long-suffering towards him, and having disciplined him by means of the law, and cast him out of Paradise, and permitted him to live to a good old age before he died, God showed great forbearance and kindness towards man, particularly in having provided him with clothing, and in that he did not in wrath inflict death upon human nature, but instructed man in prudence and wisdom, and made sin hateful to him, and righteousness the object of his desires. Then, through the guarding of the tree of life, he taught men to love and hope for immortality. Glory to him who from the beginning to the end has bestowed his provident care upon man.

Note.

[210] Any one who so wishes can learn that, in dispensing his lot to the man, God was not actuated by anger, but rather by benevolence and wisdom, and that after his transgression he not only treated him with forbearance, and provided for his wants, but even endowed him with the power of prophecy. For he said concerning his wife: And he called her name Zôè (Life), because she was the mother of all living.⁷¹ For he could not possibly have foreseen that he would make the world of men from his wife, had he not been inspired with divine power and grace. And again when Cain had murdered Abel who had not yet begotten |167 offspring, but was still in immature youth, Adam, foreseeing that Cain who survived and his seed would be destroyed by a deluge, named the third son that he begat, Sêth, as if calling him the foundation of the human race----for such is the interpretation of the name Seth. In one and the same prophecy he uttered two, both that the seed of Cain is to perish, and that he who had been begotten is, so to speak, a beginning and a new foundation of the human race. And not only Adam but his wife also herself speaking of her son, gave him his name, for it is of her that it is said: And when she had conceived, she bare a son and called his name Sêth, for, said she, God hath raised me up another seed instead of Abel whom Cain slew;⁷² implying by this that Abel has died childless, and the seed of Cain is to perish; this hath God given me as a new foundation for the human race. So far Eve.

After the sacred historian had related the birth of Sêth and of his son Enoch he took up again the account of Adam and says: This is the book of the generation of mankind. In the day that God created Adam, in the likeness of God made he him; male and female created he them. And he blessed them and called his name Adam in the day when he created them. And Adam lived 230 years and begat a son in his likeness and after his image, and called his name Sêth.⁷³ In this place likewise he called his name Sêth, as being the foundation of the human race, and as bearing his own characteristics and the proper dignities. And here it must be observed that the historian says that it was God who gave the first man his name, and the man who gave the woman hers, and that they both gave the name to their son. By the merciful dispensation under which man was placed even the unseen powers, endowed as they are with reason, are instructed in the things which pertain to God. For since man is the bond which unites the whole creation, and is also the image of God, the dispensation under which he lives is a school for his own instruction, and for that of all rational beings. For when he had sinned and had received the sentence of death, these other beings began to lament, deeming all hope to be lost both for themselves [211] and for the universe; but when again they saw that God cared for him, they were led to conceive a good hope both for him and |168 for themselves. This, moreover, the Lord declares in the Gospels when he says: There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth,⁷⁴ as on the other hand it is clear there is sorrow when any one sins. Nay, the Apostle even says that the angels were subjected to be under bondage to vanity on account of man, from a hope that God would also give them deliverance when men should receive the hope laid up for them when installed as the sons of God in glory. . And again the Apostle testifies that the angels are taught the things that pertain to God by the dispensation under which man has been placed, for he says: To the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known, through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God:⁷⁵ thus clearly showing that they are taught through the Church the wisdom of God.

Abel.

This is Abel the righteous, who, having been unrighteously put to death, was the first of all men who showed that the foundations of death were unsound. Wherefore also he being now dead yet speaketh, announcing the resurrection of the dead, which the Lord Christ the first of all, showed in his own person, and overthrew the supposed power of death. This is that Abel who is figuratively a representative of the Passion of Christ, seeing that, through the ill-will excited by his good works, he was unrighteously put to death by his brother. Of him the Apostle Paul also thus speaks in his Epistle to the Hebrews: But ye have come into the Mount Zion and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and Church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than Abel.⁷⁶ |169 

Note.

Here it is shown more clearly, when the righteous Abel came to his end that death was not brought upon man in anger, since he, who did not sin, died before him who did sin. Wherefore also an inquiry was made by God about the life of Abel, and vengeance was inflicted for his death. And since after his death he speaks, it is from this evident that he will come back again to life. And again, since death was not permitted to come first upon him who had sinned, but upon him who had not sinned, it is shown that death will be destroyed, inasmuch as he made his first assault not righteously but unrighteously----for he laid his [212] foundations upon a righteous man and not upon a sinner, whence we can learn that death laid foundations that were unsound. Wherefore he was very quickly to be destroyed, and this came to pass under the Lord Christ, by whom his seeming power was destroyed. Glory be to him who from the beginning to the end has made the good of man his special care! And again, that death is not sent in anger is shown by this fact, that those who are acknowledged to be righteous come untimely to their end, while those who are acknowledged to be sinners, after fulfilling the number of their days, come to their end in a good old age. For It is appointed by God unto all men once to die,⁷⁷ as saith the Apostle, speaking of them in general; for neither do all die, nor did Lazarus and others whom the Lord raised die only once, but he refers to all men that are in this state of existence, and are mortal as God created them. Hereafter another and a better state will be introduced in which the righteous shall be discriminated from the unrighteous, the godly from the ungodly----a state wherein death no longer prevails. Some have further said that when the first man had sinned and received the sentence of death without being as yet invested with immortality, his lot was changed to mortality. And by way forsooth of explaining this they say: When God said: In what day thou eatest of the tree, thou shalt surely die,⁷⁸ he pronounced him to have become mortal, for we sec that he did not die immediately according to the threat, so that it is evident the words hinted this: Immortal though thou art, thou shalt become |170 mortal, and, say they,⁷⁹ in order that the sentence pronounced by God may be proved true. Wherefore also his offspring, having fallen under the condemnation of their father, are born mortal. Well then, if all this be true, why was Abel, who, according to them, had fallen under this condemnation and was born mortal, but was declared to be righteous and virgin, why was he not only involved in this condemnation, but, as if it had not been sufficient, subjected also to a further punishment, that, namely, of an untimely death? Why was this punishment superadded to him, a righteous man and virgin, and more especially since, though he was born, as it is said, under the condemnation of his father, that is, was born mortal, mortals that are righteous can be exempted from death, as we see exemplified in Enoch, who also, as ye say, had fallen under the condemnation of his father, and had a wife and children, and yet did not taste of death, while Abel did so who had neither wife nor children. And why, when Cain petitioned for death through horror at his fratricide, did God not give it, but rather delivered him over to a still heavier punishment, namely, to remain on the earth lamenting and trembling----an evil from which he said death would be a deliverance? God therefore said: Whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold,⁸⁰ thereby signifying that whosoever should slay him would take away from him many penalties, and would [213] himself suffer his punishment. From this also we can see that, since God permitted a man who was righteous and virgin to be slain, death was not brought upon man in anger, as those marvel-mongers represent, but rather in benevolence and wisdom on the part of the merciful God for our discipline, as we have just said. And further, how came it, we ask, that when the first man had sinned by eating the fruit of a single tree, God according to them condemned him with all his posterity to mortality, while, when he had condemned the first murderer to lamentation and trembling, he did not condemn succeeding murderers to the same, but to a different punishment, which the first of such criminals asked to be inflicted on him, but without obtaining what he asked? |171 

Enoch.

This is Enoch on whom the sentence of death did not take effect, for he was translated by God that he should not see death, as is recorded in divine scripture, in order that thereby it might be declared to us that death shall not have power over man, but that his power over him shall be dissolved, as was exhibited in the case of the Lord Christ, when his power was entirely broken. This is Enoch who was translated to life, as a proof of the power of God to after generations, a power capable of warding off death from mortals, yea even of permitting them while living to undergo the change to a better state. This is he who along with Elias will in the last days withstand the Antichrist, and refute his error, according to the ecclesiastical tradition. This is he who through faith escaped the way of death.

Note.

In this case also it is shown still more distinctly that death has not been brought on man in wrath, nor even the sentence of death; but in order that, as we have said, God might make sin hateful to him, and righteousness the object of his desire. Wherefore neither the sentence of death, nor death itself has had power over him, nor will have power, for By faith, saith the Apostle, Enoch was translated that he should not see death;⁸¹ clearly showing that he did not see death, yea even that while living he underwent the change to a better state, as shall also all those that are left alive at the coming of the Lord, and do not die before the resurrection and the future state. Then further, let those marvel-mongers who say that death is sent to us by the anger of God, and not by his providence and wisdom, tell us how conies it that, while all men ought once to die under the sentence passed upon their father, this man did not incur this penalty? 

[Here there is a gap in the text.]

Now the length of the ark was 300 cubits, and its [214] |172 breadth below, as has been said, 50 cubits, and at the top one cubit, for in summing up he saith: Thou shalt make it, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it.¹ The height then was 50 cubits. Those 50 cubits he therefore divided into three stories, each of which was 10 cubits in height----for saith he: Of two stories and of three stories shalt thou make it; ⁸² as if he said, make within two chambers, and above make the third chamber that there may be three stories. And in the lowermost story he placed the wild beasts, and the venomous reptiles, because they were always wont to lurk in dens and holes under the earth. Then next he placed in the second story four-footed animals and those that bounded over the hills, because they lived on the surface of the earth and on the mountains. But the winged creatures and man he placed in the third story, because the former were denizens of the air, and the latter would become celestial. This is Noah who was a perfect man and righteous in his generation, who unwittingly made himself drunk, and when in that state had mysteries revealed to him. For the scripture saith: And Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done unto him.⁸³ And after this statement, by way of cursing him, he tells the things to come, and to his other sons, by way of blessing them, he predicts the future and says: Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem; and again: Let God enlarge Japhet and let him dwell in the homes of Shem;⁸⁴ for in a manner he did not curse the first, and bless those others, but uttered a prediction of the mysteries to be fulfilled through the Lord Christ. For the sons of Canaan did not serve their brethren, but rather it was the latter who served the former in Egypt. Nor did even the Gideonites, as some have supposed, serve them, but it was God whom they served. For the Israelites |173 appointed the Gibeonites to be bondsmen and carriers of water to the temple of God, and not to themselves. What else then is it but just a prediction that they themselves also shall serve Christ, who according to the flesh was descended from Shem? But the exclamation: Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem; is it only his God that is blessed? No, for Noah further says: Let God enlarge Japhet and let Him----that is God----dwell in the tents of Shem;⁸⁵ here making a transposition of the clauses, so that what he says is this: Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Him dwell in the tents of Shem, and then: Let God enlarge Japhet, for he did enlarge both Japhet and Canaan, and again both of them serve Christ who sprang from Shem. For God made his dwellings among men partly in the prophets, but has now made them wholly and uninterruptedly and universally in the Lord Christ, who according to the flesh was descended from Shem, in the same way as it is written concerning the Lord Christ according to the flesh: In whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead [215] bodily.⁸⁶ By these visions therefore Noah was privileged to predict what was fulfilled in the dispensation of the Lord Christ.

Note.

And in the case of this man it is shown still more clearly that it was not in anger that death was brought upon man. For, though on a cursory view all men seemed to have perished in the deluge by the anger of God, yet in truth they so perished that, by their premature death, the burden of the sins which they had to commit might be lightened, and while this man like a jewel of great price was so carefully guarded and in this way provided for, the truth is, as we have said, that death has not been brought upon man in wrath, but for the benefit and discipline and cessation of this miserable life. For Noah himself, whom God so carefully protected and provided for, did not escape the way of |174 death. And those who perished by the death which, as mortals, they would have had to suffer not long afterwards, suffered it as if, through its being premature, it had been sent in anger, whereas it rather benefited them, and relieved them of the burden of the many sins which, if living, they would have added to the account. But to Noah God renewed, and that in even greater measure, the same honour and blessing and promise which he had bestowed on the first man, saying: And the Lord blessed Noah and his sons and said to them: Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth; and the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hands are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; as the green herb have I given you all; but flesh with the blood thereof shall ye not eat.⁸⁷ And a little afterwards: Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God have I made man.⁸⁸ Hence it is manifest that God, both before the transgression and long after its occurrence, gave to man the same honour and power and dominion. Nay, he now gave even more, because before the transgression in the garden he commanded the man to eat of every tree except one, and after his expulsion from the garden, he no longer commanded him to eat of the tree but of the seeds (fruits) of the earth. God accordingly, having disciplined those ten generations in the earth beyond (the ocean) which was overrun with thorns, and where he subjected them to an altogether austere and miserable existence, conveyed such of them as survived into this earth by means of Noah, and commanded them to dwell there as in a better country, and one that [216] was nearly equal to Paradise, permitting them to eat of everything----of the fruits of trees and plants and still farther to eat even flesh.

Who is there that, on considering this wonderful providence and care on the part of the wise and compassionate God, would not find great difficulty in asserting that death has been inflicted on man by the anger of God, but would not rather wisely and with thankfulness reflect, that, since God wished to discipline the human race, he wisely brought death upon the first man for his |175 sin, in order that he might make sin hateful to him, and having expelled him from the garden where the tree of life was guarded, again brought him by discipline to entertain a longing after immortality? For when God said: Lest he should put forth his hand and take of the tree of life and eat, and live for ever,⁸⁹ he inspired man with a longing desire, and a love, and a good hope of immortality, and through him similarly inspired the invisible powers. For he did not exclude man from any of the promises given before the transgression, nor deprive him of them; nay, after having chastised him, he even gave him more, and through Noah augmented the dignity of his title as the image of God, for he said: Because in the image of God made I man.⁹⁰ For this, therefore, has God made man, that in the present life he should pass his days mortal and mutable, and after his course of discipline here should be rendered immortal. And this again you can more clearly see, because, from the beginning to the end, God gradually has led and is leading man to a better condition by discipline and instruction, while he also imparted to the first men the gift of prophecy. And Noah has some similitude to the Lord Christ according to the flesh. For just as, from out the mass of the first men, he was preserved and transferred to a better earth, in order that men might not suspect that the Lord God, as if repenting and reprobating his own handiwork, had destroyed men with the deluge, so also the Lord Christ according to the flesh was taken out of the mass of men for the salvation of the whole world, and was translated to a better and a heavenly kingdom. ---- Glory to God, Amen!

Melchisedek.

This is Melchisedek ---- that so great priest of God most high, who received tithes from the priests under the Mosaic law. This is the King of peace and righteousness, and at the same time a priest of God most high, who was made like to the Son of God ---- who neither received the priesthood in succession to other priests, nor transmitted it to other priests. This is he who did not perform the rites |176 of divine worship according to the law of Moses, but exercised his priestly office with other and more excellent symbols. This is he who blessed the patriarch Abraham, he who was without father and without mother and did [217] not trace his descent from them; the only person who was priest and king, who was made like to the Son of God, and was held worthy to be the revealer of so many good things.

Note.

After the deluge, when men had again multiplied, he, alone of them all, was by special choice appointed the priest of God most high and king of Jerusalem, after the likeness of the Son of God; and to God he presented sacred offerings, the choicest of all created things by which the human race is always sustained and gladdened, as scripture says. This is the king who habitually instructed the people under his rule to lead a religious life in the enjoyment of these things, whilst officiating himself in the order of his priesthood and making propitiation for his people. Though he was no doubt a Canaanite and king of the Canaanites and not of the race of the patriarchs, yet was he known to the patriarchs of the Abrahamic stock, and being such was declared to be a righteous man, a king, and a priest. He was the first who, when as a priest he had blessed Abraham and had given thanks to God, received tithes of all that Abraham possessed. Now I think, and perhaps shall be saying what is true, that Rebecca when she had gone, as is written, to inquire of the Lord concerning the twins then in her womb, heard through him the response: The elder shall serve the younger ⁹¹----for to him as the priest of God was she wont to go, according to the custom of that time, to inquire of the Lord. The Apostle has declared him to be without father, without mother, and without pedigree, and to have neither beginning of days nor end of life, since he was not one of those men who were lineally descended from Abraham. In this respect, however, he had a likeness to the Lord Christ, who was without a father with respect to the flesh, and without a mother with respect to his divine nature, in virtue of which |177 again he had no end of life, while in like manner in his human nature, he became immortal and immutable. God is therefore always reminding men, whether by words or by symbols, that after the life here there is a second state laid up in store for men.

Abraham.

This is the patriarch Abraham, the first of men who left his country, his kindred and his people and put his trust in God, and who for this, and for the promises which God made unto him, was declared righteous. This is he who from a body as good as dead and a womb also dead, produced myriads of men----who, as its root, produced for the world the blessed fruit by which the world is blessed and renovated; who by his works and the promises made to him revealed to the world the resurrection of the dead---- [218] by promises and works [such as are mentioned in the following passages]: Gen. xxviii, 14; Gal. iii, 16; John viii, 56; Heb. xi, 17-19; Rom. iv, 17-25. Now the journey which Abraham made for three days until he reached the place which God showed him as that where he should offer up his son as a sacrifice on one of the mountains, as is written, and his showing the father a ram which he might offer instead of his son who was born to him in wedlock and in the course of nature----these were all symbols and types of the mystery of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, for all scripture keeps this object in view.

Note.

Henceforth God begins with Abraham first to reveal both by words and by signs the future state of existence, for the great Abraham at the bidding of God meditated offering up his beloved son, in the belief that God was able to raise him up from the dead, and to bestow such boons upon him as are intimated in scripture. Wherefore also in the Gospels the Lord mentions the typical bearing of the sacrifice of Abraham, when he called it a type of his own day. And through the promises he showed it to [219] Abraham himself, saying: In thee and in thy seed shall all the  |178  nations be blessed;⁹² a promise which showed to him the dispensation according to Christ. Moreover, since God foresaw and from Abraham knew that He would come forth through whom the resurrection and the renovation of the universe are effected, He chose the faithful Abraham whom He had proved by every test, so that he was not chosen prematurely ; and having found him the most faithful among the Chaldaeans, a people versed in astronomy and astrology, he transferred him to the enchanters called Karênoi,⁹³ and having there shown himself faithful, he was commanded to inhabit the land of the idolatrous [Canaanites]. And since, while he dwelt there he was found to be superior to its inhabitants, and did not incline to any of the three ways that have been mentioned,⁹⁴ but rather submitted himself to the worship and to the commandments of God, he was thought worthy to receive the great promises and gifts of God, and to hear it said that from his seed should He come forth, who should first show to the world the blessing and the promise through him; He through whom also the creator and renewer of the world graciously bestows upon the world the resurrection and the promise. And they say that Abraham made the sacrifice of Isaac on that very mountain, where also the Lord Christ was offered up as a sacrifice for the whole world, and where he endured the saving cross.

Isaac.

This is Isaac the co-heir of the promises and the blessings of God given to Abraham his father----who was a type of the sacrifice of the Lord Christ, since for three days he travelled on to death, and afterwards returned alive----who on his own shoulders carried the wood for his own sacrifice, as also the Lord Christ carried his own cross on his shoulder----who died in intention and was given his life by God ; he in exchange for whom a ram was slain, and whose father heard these words from God: |179 

Because thou hast not spared the son whom thou lovest,⁹⁵ so in like manner it has been said with reference to Christ the son of God: Who spared not his own son but has given him up for us all;⁹⁶ although the flesh alone is that which has been given for the life of the world, since it is impossible for deity to die; but since the flesh has thus been given, scripture saith that his own son hath been given, because the flesh is a substitute for and a counterpart⁹⁷ of the son, after the example of the blessed Isaac. For thus saith the Lord: Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad.⁹⁸ This is Isaac who involuntarily transmitted to Jacob the blessing promised by God [220] to himself and his father, saying: Let peoples serve thee, and let their princes bow down to thee, and be thou Lord over thy brethren, and let thy father s sons bow down to thee; cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be every one that blesseth thee.⁹⁹ But we see not all these things accomplished upon Jacob, but see rather that Jacob, having prostrated himself seven times upon the ground, made obeisance to Esau. And thirty kings, sprung from Esau, reigned before ever a king reigned in Israel; so that these blessings await Him who was expected to descend from them, namely, the Lord Christ, whom the whole scope of divine scripture has in view.

And this man who was co-heir of the gifts and promises of Christ, and a type of the Lord Christ himself, was he who transmitted the blessing, which he himself had received from his father, not to the son whom he wished to inherit it, but to him to whom God ordained it should be given. Glory to our God who in supreme wisdom administers the affairs of men, Amen! |180 

Jacob.

This is Jacob, himself also a co-heir of the promises of God, and one who looked for the city which hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God----that is, the heavenly Jerusalem, into which, as our forerunner, Christ has entered----and to which state of existence the whole scheme of Christian worship looks, which new and living way the Lord Christ first of all instituted for us, which also the great Jacob predicts in transmitting it to Judah his own son, when he was blessing him; by whom also Jesus Christ is announced as the Lord of the promises in these words which he spake: Judah, thee shall thy brethren praise: Thy hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies; thy father's sons shall bow down before thee; Judah is a lion's whelp; from the branch,¹⁰⁰ my son, hast thou ascended, he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as a lions whelp; who shall rouse him up? A ruler shall not fail from Judah nor a leader from his thighs until what is laid up in store for him shall come, and he the expectation of the nations. Binding his foal unto the vines, and to the tendril of the vine his ass's colt. He shall wash his garment in wine, and his vesture in the blood of the grape. Wine shall make his eyes sparkle with joy, and his teeth shall be whiter than milk.¹⁰¹ But the sons of his father did not bow down before him, nay, on the contrary he made obeisance to Joseph, even after the death of his father. It is evident therefore that the whole of this prophecy had its fulfilment in the Lord Christ who descended from him according to the flesh, and that it sets before the mind his kingly power, and his Passion, and his blessed Resurrection after his Passion. |181 

Note.

And this Jacob, who is the third patriarch, being reckoned [221] with the other two, married a wife whom he did not from the first himself wish to marry, namely Leah; and on the fourth son whom he begat by her, that is, on Judah, he conferred the blessings and the promises; so that from this it is manifest, that the blessing did not accrue to any chance person but to those from whom the Lord Christ according to the flesh, the Prince of the second life, was to spring. And from Judah himself we can learn, that it was not from his own wife, but from his daughter-in-law Thamar that the line of descent of his posterity, from which sprang the Lord of the promises, was reckoned. Most clearly still, when the patriarchs had received such great promises from God, namely, that in them and in their seed all the nations should be blessed, and this promise in like manner: Unto you I will give this land, and unto your seed,¹⁰² and when they had received not so much of it as they could set their foot on, but dwelt in tents, they, being full of faith, showed themselves to be expecting and hoping for another dispensation in which they would receive the promises. Wherefore also each one of them in his dying moments transmitted the blessing to him whom God had ordained to receive it. Wherefore also again scripture, laying up, as it were, the fathers in a treasure-house, says with reference to each of them: And he was gathered unto his fathers, meaning that all of them together being treasured up for the future state, will receive possession thereof.

Moses.

This is that great Moses by whom marvellous signs and wonders were wrought, and by whom the history of the Creation was written; he, who was honoured to receive the shadows ¹⁰³ of our true shepherd Christ; who by words and deeds announced beforehand the nature of the dispensation of the Lord Christ; by deeds, as, for instance, by redeeming Israel from the bondage of the Egyptians---- |182 by instituting the Passover and the shedding of blood----by making the passage through the sea, as in baptism----by foretelling through the cloud the setting of the law ¹⁰⁴----by pre-figuring under his sojourning ¹⁰⁵ in the wilderness, our abiding in the Holy Spirit and in the Church; by his predicting the Passion of the Lord Christ on the cross, by lifting up on high the brazen serpent; by his describing beforehand the habitation in the heavens, when he procured an entrance into the land of promise by Joshua. O wondrous office of Mediator! by manifold miracles announced! And what need is there to speak of the Tabernacle which was an image of the whole world, in which was placed the mercy-seat, holding the office of the Lord Christ? But that we may not lengthen out the [223] discourse, having before repeatedly said these things, let us come to the prophecy itself which was expressed by words----so then, he speaks thus: A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you----him ye shall hear. And that man ¹⁰⁶ who shall not hear what ever that prophet shall speak in my name, that soul shall be cut off from his people. ¹⁰⁷ And again he records what was spoken by Balaam: A star shall arise out of Jacob, there shall be raised up a man out of Israel----and he shall smite the princes of Moab----and destroy all the sons of Seth.¹⁰⁸ By the sons of Sêth he means the whole world. And this is not applicable to anyone except |183 the Lord Christ, for Sêth is by interpretation a foundation Since therefore Cain and his seed perished utterly in the deluge, while Abel the younger died childless, Sêth was posterior to these, from whom both Noah and all the world are descended, and who is thus a foundation as it were of mankind. Moreover for this reason Adam, inspired by the deity, addressed him by the name of Sêth, that is, foundation; and therefore he said: And he will subdue all the sons of Seth, that is, the whole world. Now this is applicable to Christ, and to Him alone, whom all scripture ever keeps in view.¹⁰⁹

Note.

This Moses, who was a comely man bom for God,¹¹⁰ was brought up in the royal court of Egypt and instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; and in after days, having been taken up to Mount Sinai, he was taught also the wisdom of God, and was sent back to Egypt in the character of a type of him who redeems the world from bondage, and graciously bestows freedom and adoption into sonship. For he redeemed the Israelites from their bondage to the Egyptians, having prescribed beforehand the shedding of blood and the Passover. Having led the people through the Red Sea, he thus prefigured baptism. By the giving of the law he foreshowed the descent of the Holy Spirit. By the sojourn in the wilderness, he signified beforehand the discipline of the Church. By the entrance into the land of promise, effected by his successor, he foretold the dwelling-place of heaven. By the glory wherewith God made his face to shine, he foreshadowed in part the future glories.¹¹¹ It was. however, not only by types that he prophesied concerning the mystery as to Christ, but he did so also by words: and again he was the first who communicated to mankind and to the world the |184 knowledge of letters and the practice of writing. Having seen the creation of the whole world, and the delineation of it revealed to him in mysteries, he committed what he had seen to writing, and showed the types of the first and of the second state of existence. Glory be to him who, through those whom he has reared up, has wisely provided for the interests of mankind.

Text.

[223] After Moses and his successor Joshua the son of Nun, and after those who became Judges in Israel, and after Saul had been invested with the sovereignty and been rejected as unworthy, God raised up to them a King virtuous, righteous, and a prophet, who composed the book of 150 psalms, when moved by the Holy Spirit. These psalms were written metrically in accordance with the metre proper to the Hebrew language, and he chanted them with melody and rhythm, accompanied with the music of different instruments, and with dances and melodies. For he himself handled the harp, and he had under him a number of choirs of the minor prophets, for so they called those who attached themselves to the prophets, and who were also frequently designated the sons of the prophets. The instruments upon which they played were various: one part of the choir had cymbals, another flutes, another drums, another trumpets, another a psaltery and harp, while another played on what are called shepherd's pipes.¹¹² Each of the choirs had its leader;¹¹³ one was called Asaph, another Idithum, others the sons of Core, another Aetham an Israelite, another Moses, a man of God.¹¹⁴ When David therefore was moved by the Spirit, he would then predict something as to the captivity |185 of the people, or as to their return therefrom----or he would inculcate lessons of morality, or take Providence for his theme, or the Lord Christ Each psalm he composed in metre----and it turned upon a single subject----on which account some psalms are short and others long. On composing a psalm he would hand it over to one of the choirs which he had proved, or to the one which it fitted best, and that choir sang it first. And if again in the middle of a psalm he considered that he should make over the rest of the psalm to another choir, then that succession of the measure was called a diapsalma;¹¹⁵ because those singers received in succession the rest of the psalm to be sung by them. But any one who so wishes can learn about this from what is written in the Chronicles of the Kings, namely: And he sung this song by the hand of Asaph the prophet.¹¹⁶ But when the psalm had first been handed over in the manner stated, then each choir afterwards, both by itself and in conjunction with all the other choirs in responsive, joyous, and measured strains, some with these instruments and others with those, sang the psalm, along with dancing to the glory of God. But again we can learn with regard to this matter that David himself, when he had received the Ark from aliens, danced before it, and when reproached for so doing by his wife Melchol (Michal), said: I will play and laugh for gladness before the [224] Lord.¹¹⁷ For not only did he not cease doing so, but promised that he would long persist in the practice. But some, neither understanding this ordinance and the real truth of the matter, nor wishing to be instructed by those who know, have betaken themselves to allegorical interpretations, and have maintained that all the psalms are not David's, but allege that they are manifestly the |186 compositions of those who received them from David to be sung. But never did either the Apostle or the Lord himself mention them as being the psalms of any other than David.

David.

This is that great David, the King and prophet----the man after the Lord's own heart, to whom, as to Abraham, God again correspondently gave the promises that his seed should remain for ever, and that the throne of his kingdom should likewise be perpetual. For when Abraham, having left his country and his kindred, trusted God, God correspondently promised that he would make him the father of nations, and that he would bless all the nations through him and through his seed, that is, through Christ. And to David also, since he was a king, and one with whom He was well pleased, He promised that both his seed and the throne of his kingdom should remain in perpetuity----and here again Christ is meant. This David was privileged to prophesy under inspiration of the Spirit concerning the Lord Christ, having composed four psalms which refer entirely to him, namely, psalms ii, viii, xlv and cx.¹¹⁸ I say so because both the Lord Christ and the Apostles appear to have taken testimonies concerning him from these four psalms; as for instance, it is related in the Acts of the Apostles that, when the whole company of the Apostles were praying to God, they said: For of a truth against Jesus whom thou hast anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate have been gathered together in this city;¹¹⁹ accepting the second psalm as having reference to Christ. In like manner in the Acts themselves, Paul when he was discoursing in the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia spoke thus: And we bring you good tidings of the promise made unto the fathers, |187 how that God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children in that he raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.¹²⁰ Paul here, by Christ's having been begotten, understands his resurrection, and he too has decided that the second psalm has been spoken concerning him, as all the Apostles also have affirmed. And these things have been said about his humanity, for it is about his deity that in this very psalm it has been said: Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron; as a potters vessel shalt thou dash them in pieces;¹²¹ as if at the same time making known the force and might of his divinity, and indicating the renovation or regeneration of the human race----for the potter's vessel, though dashed to pieces, provided it has not as yet been subjected to the furnace, admits of being refashioned.

In like manner also David composed the eighth psalm [225] with reference to Christ, speaking of his divine nature in the first verses of it, as the Lord Christ himself also testifies of it in the Gospel, when they strewed his way with branches and praised him with shouts of welcome, saying: Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!¹²² And when the Jews, finding themselves powerless to rebuke the multitudes and the children, (for it was a marvellous spectacle----to see boys, babes and sucklings, and the disciples and the multitudes joining in shouts of applause, and with loud voices praising him in song), took in hand to throw questions at him, and said to him: Hearest thou not what these are saying?¹²³ But another evangelist says: Some from among the crowd said to him: Rebuke thy disciples;¹²⁴ as if they would say----Why dost thou blaspheme, accepting a hymn which can be suitably applied to God alone? each of the parties who |188 addressed him having the same purpose in view. Unto them the Lord said----to the one party: Yea, have ye never read; Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained praise?¹²⁵ clearly indicating that the eighth psalm had reference to him; and at the same time obscurely hinting that he did not take by robbery the things which belonged to God, since he was God; as the Apostle also declares: He counted it no robbery to be on an equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant;¹²⁶ to the other party he said: Why do ye wonder at the children and the disciples? If these should hold their peace the stones will cry out.¹²⁷ But these men, knowing it had so been written, and seeing in very deed babes and sucklings in an astonishing manner with loud voices chanting the hymn, they reflected that if he could make babes beyond their natural capacity sing the hymn with loud voices, he could also make inanimate things cry out ----and thus reflecting, they for very shame put a bridle on their tongues. O how amazing the power of the Lord Christ! O how amazing his loving-kindness! O how amazing his merciful condescension! How by his teaching regarding the form of a servant which he took upon him, did he deign to show mildly glimpses of his divinity, to receive accusations preferred against him by his own creatures, and to answer them, not with anger but with mildness and forbearance? O the excess of his long-suffering! as David was privileged still further to make such prophecies, for he speaks also concerning his human nature in the same psalm from the passage: What is man that thou art mindful of him?¹²⁸ on to the end, unto which the divine Apostle Paul bears witness in [226] the following passages: Heb. ii, 9; ii, 5; ii, 6-8; Acts xvii, 30, 31; as does also Peter in Acts x, 42. |189 

In like manner David again spake of him in the forty-second psalm (our 43rd) in which we again find him speaking both of his divine and his human nature. To whom again the blessed Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews bears witness in these words: And of the Son he saith, thy throne, O God! is for ever and ever; the sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.¹²⁹ Having said this concerning his divinity, he forthwith speaks of his humanity and says: Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity, wherefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.¹³⁰ For it is not his divinity which is anointed on account of his loving righteousness and hating iniquity, nor is it in any case anointed, nor has it another God [for fellow], for God exists by himself. But it is his humanity which is anointed with the oil of gladness (by which is meant, with the Holy Spirit) above its fellows----that is, above all the anointed. For his divinity has no other fellow, for God is one, the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, but the humanity of Christ has for its fellows all men, especially those who have been anointed. For by reason that the humanity of Christ was anointed above all others, since it was anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power, a distinction accorded to none of the others who were anointed, he used the words: Above all thy fellows. The whole psalm, moreover, he wrote with reference to Christ and the Church, speaking of the one as a royal bridegroom and of the other as a royal bride.

And in like manner also he uttered the 109th psalm (our 110th) with reference "to him, as the Lord himself testified when he addressed the Jews in these words: How then does David in the spirit call him Lord, saying: The Lord |190 said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand till I put thy enemies underneath thy feet; if David then calleth him Lord, how is he his son?¹³¹ The expression, his Lord, clearly indicates that he was God, and that other, sit thou at my right hand, is clearly suited to his humanity. For, the word sit he said to him who was not sitting. But Deity is established in its own blessedness, and honour and glory, and is neither conceded by one who is greater to one who [227] is less, nor is one who is less invited to assume it. But the humanity of Christ is, by the Deity which is inseparably united, invited¹³² in the words: Sit thou at my right hand, that is, in my dignity----for God being uncircum-scribed has neither right hand nor left. But he says this to his humanity, sit in my dignity----that is, in my person, as the image of God, shown to all the world. For thus also Daniel speaks: And there was given to him a kingdom and dominion,¹³³ et cetera; and the Lord himself says: There hath been given to me power in heaven and on earth.¹³⁴ Farther down again in the same psalm he saith with reference to his deity: Out of the womb before morning have I begotten thee, as if the Father were saying to the Son, with reference to his deity, Thee before all creation have I brought forth from the womb (thus showing him to be con-substantial) and not afterwards, but having thee in myself without beginning and without limit, as if from the womb, from my own substance have I begotten thee, being with me and co-existing with me. Then immediately again with reference to his humanity he says: The Lord hath sworn and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec;¹³⁵ for deity does not exercise the priestly office or render worship, but is rather itself |191 worshipped and the recipient of sacred services. The Apostle also mentions this passage, saying in the Epistle to the Hebrews: Even as Aaron, so Christ also glorified not himself to be made a high priest, but he that spake unto him, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee; as he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec;¹³⁶ thus extracting all that referred to the humanity of Christ.

Thus then the blessed David spoke these four psalms with reference to the Lord Christ and to him alone, for he did not confound the things of the Lord Christ with those of servants, but he spake of the things which properly belong to the Lord as the Lord's, and of the things of servants as those of servants. But whatever other passages the Apostles quoted from the psalms, they did not extract them because they were specially spoken of him, but because they suited their argument. For example: They parted my garments among them,¹³⁷ and again: They gave me gall for my meat,¹³⁸ and: I have set the Lord always before me,¹³⁹ and: Thou hast ascended on high leading captivity captive;¹⁴⁰ and other such like passages they extracted, when they suited the argument they had in hand. The blessed Paul in like manner did this, transferring the passage of Moses in Deuteronomy to his own argument which it suited: Say not in thy heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down) or, Who shall descend into the abyss? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead),¹⁴¹ thus accommodating the passage to suit the requirements of his argument. For the remaining parts of the psalms from which they [228] quoted are not applicable to the Lord Christ. For instance, the passage: They parted my garments among them, occurs |192 in the 21st (our 22nd) psalm. Is that psalm then speaking of him where it says: Far from my safety, the words of my transgressions? ¹⁴² No----that is out of harmony and at variance with divine scripture, and to cite such a passage as referring to Christ would be clear madness. As regards however those four psalms which speak concerning the Lord Christ, each of them is entirely throughout applicable to Him. For, as we have just observed, the blessed David discriminated what was said with reference to the Lord Christ from what was said with reference to any one else. For even the Saviour himself manifestly did this when the Jews accused him, saying: Why workest thou on the Sabbath day? and he replied to them saying: My Father worketh even until now.¹⁴³ And when they accused his disciples, he said: Know ye not what David did when he was an-hungered and they that were with him, how he entered into the house of God and did eat the shew-bread, which it ivas not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but for the priests alone?¹⁴⁴ thus expressly contradistinguishing¹⁴⁵ himself from the Father, as a son relatively to his father, and his disciples from the prophets, or, at any rate, the priests, as servants relatively to servants. When the Lord was transfigured on the mountain before Peter and James and John in great glory, and Moses and Elias talked with Him, the disciples, witnessing the exceeding glory, were thrown into amazement and rapturous delight, and desire and ardent longing |193 for that wondrous beauty. But Peter, after a manner identifying himself with the others in their common astonishment at the spectacle, answered and said to Jesus: Lord, it is good for us to be here,¹⁴⁶ as if he said, Lo! beautiful is the sight, and the place, the splendour and the transcendent glory. Wherefore should we go down hence, putting ourselves again into the hands of those who wish to plot against us and to oppress us, while we have to remove from place to place, and are persecuted? If thou wishest therefore, let us make here three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.¹⁴⁶ And because Peter considered Moses and Elias to be equal in honour to the Lord, seeing that with reference to their equality he reckoned the number of the tabernacles, assigning one to each, the evangelist Luke notes this and in these terms: Not knowing what he said,¹⁴⁷ that is, Peter not knowing what he said with reference to the Lord. Straightway moreover a cloud overshadowed them, and separated Moses and Elias from them and hid them from the disciples, and as for Jesus, who was left alone in the midst, the Father pointed out and showed him to the disciples saying: This is my son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye Him.¹⁴⁸ Ye are mistaken, he says, in putting Him on an equality with the others, for He is my Son. They, like yourselves, are servants. Him therefore as Lord and as my Son, hear [229] ye in all things.

Thus then the prophet David also, being moved by the Holy Ghost, did not indiscriminately confound what had an underlying reference to the Lord with what had an underlying reference to servants, but those four psalms which had a special reference to the Lord he was privileged to compose with prophetic foresight; while all the other psalms he gave out to the whole world for useful |194 instruction with regard to other persons or things or histories, in order that they might be held fast and well remembered by all as calculated to delight. And this is abundantly clear that, in all the churches of the world, we shall find that the Psalms of David are sung, and that they are on the lips of nearly all men, whether small or great, and are more studied and remembered than the other prophets and scriptures. But bringing this subject also to an end, let us pass on to the great Elias and supply a worthy delineation of him also. Here then you see him thus delineated.

Elijah.

This is Elijah the first of men who showed to men the path to heaven----the first of men who showed to angels and to men the one way----who though his lot was to be an inhabitant of earth, all at once penetrated into heaven----who though a mortal yet vies even with the immortals----who walked upon the earth, and yet, as a spirit, treads with the angels the paths of heaven; who with his mantle of sheep-skin imparted to his disciple Elisha a double share of his own gifts----a man who has lived for ages and is from old age exempt----who is reserved to be leader against Antichrist, standing up against him and convicting him of deception and overweening pride----who from the error into which he has seduced them, leads back all men to God at the consummation of the age. This is he who is deemed worthy to be the fore-runner of the second and glorious advent of the Lord Christ. O the wondrous measure of his services, in which he competes with the angels! Glory to God who graciously bestows these gifts upon men. Amen! |195 

Note.

This is the great Elijah, who having been taken up as into heaven shows to men and angels how highly human nature has been honoured, and by means of him God has again laid the foundations of a good hope, that it is possible for men, if God will, to ascend into heaven. For it is a great and wondrous thing to see this man, bridle in hand, riding his fiery chariot as he sweeps the fields of air. Oh! what wondrous kindness on his [230] part who has bestowed the honour. Let those be ashamed of themselves who do not extol the mighty dispensation of God----who do not praise and admire how wisely and how dispassionately God, on the one hand, awards to men their punishments, and on the other, preserves the honour of man who was made in his image. Glory and nraise to him for ever and ever, Amen!

The Prophet Hosea.

This is Hosea, the first of the twelve prophets who was privileged to speak concerning the Lord Christ in these terms: When they are afflicted, let them rise early to seek me saying, Come and let us return unto the Lord our God, for he hath smitten us and he will heal us; he that hath struck us will bind us up. After two days will he heal us. On the third day we shall be raised up again and we shall live! ¹⁴⁹ With reference to this passage the Apostle Paul says to the Corinthians: For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.¹⁵⁰ For that he was buried, and that he was raised up on the third day according to the scriptures, is not to be found anywhere else. The prophet still further says what is applicable to Christ: My flesh is of them; and again he says: Ephraim compasseth me about with falsehood, and the house of Israel and Judah with ungodliness. Now God knoweth them, and there shall be called a holy people of God, from the tribe,¹⁵¹ |196 through him who appeared out of it, namely, the Lord Christ according to the flesh----the prophet calling Judah the holy people of God. Yet again the same prophet says: From the power of the grave will I ransom them. Where is thy victory, O death! Where is thy sting, O grave!¹⁵²----a passage which the Apostle has used concerning the resurrection.

Note.

This prophet also clearly predicted the resurrection on the third day, saying: On the third day we shall rise up. In like manner also he foretold the destruction of death and the vengeance upon the sting of the grave. How should we not be lost in astonishment at the ineffable benevolence of God, which is at all times making provision for the human race. Glory to him for his unspeakable gift!

The Prophet Joel.

This is Joel the second in order who was privileged to prophesy concerning the mystery of the Lord Christ, for he speaks thus (chap. ii, 28-32): And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; [231] and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. A nd I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered-----a passage which the blessed Peter mentions in the Acts of the Apostles as having been fulfilled when the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles occurred on the day of Pentecost. |197 

Note.

This prophet also foretold the wonderful things that took place in the time of the Lord Christ through the Holy Ghost, such as prophesyings, dreams and visions under his influence; likewise the day of the great, terrible, and glorious advent of the Lord Christ. For examples we may point to the revelations made, in different ways, to Joseph and to the Wise Men in sleep, as the Gospels relate; and to the revelation made by the Holy Ghost through visions to Symeon (Simeon) who took up the Lord Christ in his arms. Anna again the daughter of Phanuel gave thanks to the Lord because of him. There were also those who prophesied, such as Agabus and the daughters of Philip. Arid the women who were at the Passion of the Lord saw visions of angels, as did also the disciples. And why need I speak of the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles; yea, even upon Cornelius and upon all the faithful of whom the Apostle writes (I Cor. xii, 8-14): For to one is given the word of wisdom; to another faith in the same spirit; to another gifts of healings in the same spirit; to another workings of miracles; to another prophecy, and to another discernings of spirits, and to another divers kinds of tongues, and to another interpretation of tongues; but all these worketh the one and the same spirit, dividing to each one severally even as he will! Glory to God who through all the prophets foretold these things, glory for ever and ever, Amen.

The Prophet Amos.

This is Amos the third in order, who also was privileged to tell of the coming of the Lord Christ and in these words: Lo! I am he that confirms the thunder and that creates the wind and that announces to men his Anointed.¹⁵³ And again he says (ix, 11, 12): In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old, that the rest of men and all the nations may enquire who have been called by my name, saith the Lord |198 who doeth these things. A passage of which James the Apostle makes mention in the Acts of the Apostles.

Note.

[232] This Prophet, in agreement with the first, announces Christ, through whom the salvation of the whole world is effected. And through him God promises that he will raise up again the Tabernacle of David which had fallen, and will extend help to all the nations. And these are the same tidings which all the prophets proclaim.

The Prophet Obadiah.

This is Obadiah (Abdiou) the fourth in order, who also was privileged to prophesy concerning the mystery regarding Christ, and who speaks thus: Because the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations.¹⁵⁴ This taken in its obvious meaning is spoken of the Scythians, that is, of Gog and Magog, but it is most properly applicable to the Lord Christ, for the prophet shortly afterwards says: But on Mount Zion there shall be salvation.¹⁵⁵

Note.

This prophet also again clearly proclaims that the day of Salvation in Zion is near at hand and upon all the nations. Glory to God evermore. Amen!

The Prophet Jonah.

This is Jonah the fifth in order, who not by words, but by what he did and by what he typified, predicted the resurrection of Christ. For the Lord says: as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.¹⁵⁶ For as the whale vomited out Jonah uncorrupted, so also did the sepulchre vomit out the Lord to a better life. |199 

Note.

This prophet prefigured through his actions the sepulchre and the miraculous resurrection and incorruption of Christ, through whom is dispensed the renovation of man and his summing up in him. Glory to God who doeth these things. Amen!

The Prophet Isaiah.

This is the great Isaiah the son of Amos, who in a figure foresaw the things concerning the mystery of Christ, when he saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up, while the Seraphim stood in a circle around him, the one having six wings, and the other six wings, with which they did cover themselves, and the one cried out to the other and said: Holy, holy, holy Lord of Sabaoth! the whole earth is full of his glory.¹⁵⁷ Thereupon one of the Seraphim [233] was sent to him who with the tongs took [a live coal] from the altar, and touched his lips saying: This will take away thy sins.¹⁵⁸ Isaiah by the vision which was shown to him, and by the hymn of praise, and by the figure was instructed to prophesy the mystery concerning Christ, and further again in words he thus speaks: He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer, so was he dumb.¹⁵⁹ The Ethiopian eunuch on reading this passage asked Philip to interpret it to him, and he at once explained that it was spoken by the Prophet with reference to the Lord Christ. And again he says: A man who is under chastisement and knows what it is to bear sickness;¹⁶⁰ and so in other passages----Isaiah liii. 9-11; xxviii. 16; lxi. 10; and in lxi., 1; The spirit of'the Lord is upon me----a passage which the Lord having read in the synagogue on the Sabbath said: Verily I say unto you, to-day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.¹⁶¹ |200 

Note 1.

Isaiah, that prophet of sublimest strain,¹⁶² by his words and visions proclaimed beforehand to men the confession even of the Holy Trinity, that is, of the one God, and the resurrection of human nature which the Church of God also now proclaims. Glory to God who wisely dispenses all things for the good of the human race!

Note 2.

But he too did not prophesy things strange and unusual, but like the other prophets predicted the things that would be through Christ, and among them again that great day of the Lord on which he would send the Prophet Elijah still surviving. Glory to God who created all things and again created them anew!

The Prophet Micah.

This is Micah the seventh in order, who also was privileged to prophesy concerning the coming of the Lord Christ, and he says: And thou Bethlehem, the house of Ephratha, art the least to be among the thousands of Judah. From thee, there shall come forth to me one who shall be for a ruler over Israel, whose goings forth have been of [234] old from everlasting.¹⁶³ The chief priests and scribes of the Jews, taking this passage, when Herod asked them where the Christ should be born, replied, In Bethlehem of Judaea, upon which he sent the Wise Men away to Bethlehem. This prophet further says: He will turn again and have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities under foot, and all our sins shall be cast into the depths of the sea. He will perform the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham, as he hath sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.¹⁶⁴

Note.

This prophet also in harmony with the others, predicts that he who was raised up from of old to be a ruler over Israel should |201 come out of Bethlehem and Judah, he through whom absolution is given to the world, the taking away of our sins and conducting us into the better state. Glory to God who all things dispenses wisely and foretells the things which concern man!

The Prophet Nahum.

This is Nahum the eighth in order who was also privileged to prophesy concerning the resurrection of the Lord Christ, and he says: Feast, O Judah, keep thy feasts, perform thy vows, for they shall add to pass through thee no more.¹⁶⁵ It has been consummated, it has been taken away. He went up breathing upon thy face, delivering thee from affliction.¹⁶⁶

Note.

See how this prophet also exhorts us to rejoice over the resurrection of Christ and over our own, showing beforehand that we shall never grow old, proclaiming, that is, our incorruption and our immortality. Glory to God, Amen!

The Prophet Habakkuk.

This is Habakkuk the ninth in order, who was also privileged to speak concerning the resurrection of Christ in these terms: Behold, ye despisers, and regard, and wonder marvellously, and vanish for ever, because I work a work in your days which ye will not believe though it be told you.¹⁶⁷ This passage Paul cited at Antioch of Pisidia as having reference to the resurrection of the Lord Christ.

Note.

In like manner also this prophet is commanded to predict marvellous and incredible things to men, and especially to despisers, things namely concerning the resurrection. Glory to God, Amen! |202 

The Prophet Jeremiah.

[235] This is Jeremiah the tenth in order, who was also privileged to prophesy concerning the mystery respecting Christ, saying thus: And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was priced, whom certain of the sons of Israel did price, and they gave them for the potter s field as the Lord appointed me.¹⁶⁸ The evangelist Matthew mentions this passage as having been fulfilled at the time of the passion. The same prophet again says: Lo! the days are coming, saith the Lord, and I shall make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.¹⁶⁹ etc. This passage is cited by the Apostle in the Epistle to the Romans.

Note

This prophet in like manner predicts things which have reference to the Lord Christ who is the Prince of the second dispensation----for he describes in the clearest manner the first and second dispensation, the second whereof had its beginning in the Lord Christ. Glory to Cod for ever, Amen!

The Prophet Saphonias (Zephaniah).

This is Zephania