Treatise on the Mysteries

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1.1–1.23.4 · 1.24.1–2.12.1 · 2.13.1–2.15.1

1. 1.1.1The fragmentary opening contrasts superficial resemblance with a full typological comparison.
2. 1.1.2All of Scripture foretells Christ's coming in words, deeds, and examples.
3. 1.1.3Christ prefigures the church in the patriarchs from Adam to Jacob.
4. 1.1.4Hilary states his plan: to show Christ and the church prefigured in Scripture from Adam onward.
5. 1.2.1The name Adam prefigures Christ's birth.
6. 1.2.2Adam's name ("red earth") points to Christ's flesh, transformed into spiritual glory.
7. 1.3.1Eve's creation from sleeping Adam and Adam's prophecy are introduced.
8. 1.3.2Paul calls Adam and Eve's union a mystery of Christ and the church; Jesus, asked about divorce, shows that he himself spoke Gen 2:24.
9. 1.3.3Christ spoke through Adam, so Adam's words both report a real event and prefigure Christ.
10. 1.3.4The church, born from Christ's side and nourished by his flesh in the sacrament, is foreshadowed in Eve.
11. 1.3.51 Timothy 2:14–15 is applied to the church, gathered from sinners and Gentiles.
12. 1.3.6Hilary reads 1 Tim 2:15 of the church saved through her faithful children, rejecting salvation by childbearing.
13. 1.4.1Paul's words on Adam and Eve are chiefly spiritual, about Christ and the church.
14. 1.4.2Paul's teaching also applies literally: as a believing spouse sanctifies an unbeliever, so believing children help their parents.
15. 1.5.1Eve's formation contains a hidden mystery of Christ and the church.
16. 1.5.2Eve's creation from bone and flesh foreshadows bodily resurrection.
17. 1.5.3Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones shows the same order of resurrection.
18. 1.5.4The mystery hidden for ages is the Gentiles' inclusion in Christ's body and the glorifying of our bodies.
19. 1.5.5The church, like Eve, is formed from the risen Christ, in whom the resurrection of all flesh is already accomplished.
20. 1.5.6What is prepared for the church at the end was already completed in figure in Adam and Eve.
21. 1.6.1Cain and Abel prefigure two peoples.
22. 1.6.2God looks on Abel's offering and not Cain's, showing that his regard marks what pleases him.
23. 1.6.3God rejected Cain's sacrifice because he foresaw the murder.
24. 1.6.4Tilling the ground signifies works of the flesh; Abel's firstlings signify the inward sacrifices of conscience.
25. 1.6.5Abel's offering of firstlings prefigures the church's sacrifice of Christ's body.
26. 1.6.6Cain, envious, kills Abel, denies his crime, and is cursed and kept for sevenfold vengeance.
27. 1.6.7Cain's name means laughter, Abel's weeping.
28. 1.7.1Cain and Abel prefigure the Jewish people's hostility to the Christians.
29. 1.7.2Hilary applies Cain's punishment to the Jewish people after the fall of Jerusalem and links the names to Christ's woes and beatitudes.
30. 1.7.3Jesus links Abel's blood to the guilt of his own generation.
31. 1.7.4The blood of Abel and of Christ's body is required of those who cried, "His blood be on us."
32. 1.8.1The fulfilment of the Cain type is introduced.
33. 1.8.2God's word to Cain about dividing rightly also points to the future.
34. 1.8.3Israel sins if it does not share the law, a shadow of things to come, with the Gentiles.
35. 1.8.4Like Cain, those under the law are guilty unless they share in the Gentiles' accepted offering.
36. 1.9.1Lamech, husband of two wives, boasts of killing a young man.
37. 1.9.2Hilary notes the puzzles in Lamech's words.
38. 1.9.3Lamech, though impious, prophesies a vengeance greater than Cain's.
39. 1.10.1Lamech's story must be read for its figure of the future.
40. 1.10.2Lamech prefigures the high priest who, with Jews and Gentiles, had Christ crucified.
41. 1.10.3Like Lamech, Caiaphas prophesied unknowingly about the death of Christ.
42. 1.10.4Christ's "seventy times seven" answers Lamech's vengeance with forgiveness for those who believe.
43. 1.11.1Seth is born in place of Abel.
44. 1.11.2Seth, "foundation of faith", prefigures the church founded on Peter.
45. 1.12.1The story of Noah is full of figures of the future.
46. 1.12.2Noah prefigures Christ's humanity, as Lamech's prophecy at his birth shows.
47. 1.12.3Lamech's prophecy of rest cannot be fulfilled in Noah himself.
48. 1.12.4Scripture records Noah's own deeds, from the ark to the curse and blessing of his sons.
49. 1.13.1Noah's deeds contain a great mystery of the future.
50. 1.13.2Christ, who gives rest to the weary, fulfils Lamech's prophecy about Noah.
51. 1.13.3Christ shelters his children in the ark of the church and gives the Spirit, dies, and rises.
52. 1.13.4The order of entering and leaving the ark signifies the church's sanctification.
53. 1.13.5Men and women enter the ark separately but leave as couples, signifying continence and the later use of marriage; then a gap.
54. 1.14.1The dove's second flight has a clear meaning.
55. 1.14.2The dove's return with the olive leaf prefigures the seventy disciples returning in triumph.
56. 1.14.3The dove's three flights signify the Spirit's mission, the disciples' desertion, and his lasting indwelling in believers.
57. 1.15.1Noah's drunkenness from the vine prefigures the passion, caused by the vineyard Israel.
58. 1.15.2Noah's three sons represent the Gentiles who mock Christ's death and the law and grace that honor it.
59. 1.16.1Japheth in Shem's tents signifies the Gentiles brought to faith; then a gap.
60. 1.17.1A fragment: Sarah signifies the church, Hagar the synagogue.
61. 1.17.2Isaac prefigures Christ and his passion in the sacrifice on the mountain.
62. 1.18.1The letters added to Abram's and Sarai's names carry numerical meanings.
63. 1.18.2Christ, the one added, seeks the hundredth sheep; an appended passage explains a three-week season before the Lord's coming.
64. 1.19.1A fragment: Rebecca prefigures the church in her marriage and, in her twins, two peoples.
65. 1.20.1A fragment on Esau's name, beginning with the red stew.
66. 1.20.2Esau sells his birthright.
67. 1.20.3Esau's contempt for his birthright prefigures the first people losing the hope of resurrection through carnal desire.
68. 1.21.1The rest of the story is both history and figure.
69. 1.21.2Isaac asks Esau for game; Rebecca prepares Jacob to take the blessing.
70. 1.21.3Jacob, disguised, receives Isaac's blessing.
71. 1.22.1Esau gave up future honor for present pleasure; Jacob gave up the present for the future.
72. 1.22.2Believers, renouncing present pleasures, take the inheritance the first people lost.
73. 1.22.3Esau's robe on Jacob signifies immortality, as the best robe given to the prodigal son; the kidskins signify the sinner's form.
74. 1.23.1Isaac's blessing was not fulfilled in Jacob's lifetime.
75. 1.23.2Jacob was promised plenty but suffered famine.
76. 1.23.3Jacob was promised dominion but served Pharaoh and Laban.
77. 1.23.4Since Scripture cannot lie, Jacob's blessing is fulfilled in the faithful people he prefigured.
78. 1.24.1The opening of Isaac's blessing points to the future.
79. 1.24.2The smell signifies prophetic foreknowledge; the full field, the world.
80. 1.24.3Isaac foresaw by the Spirit the blessing of the younger people in the eternal world.
81. 1.25.1Scripture is written so that history and future hope coincide.
82. 1.25.2Blind Isaac tests Jacob by touch.
83. 1.25.3Isaac suspects the deception: the voice is Jacob's, the hands Esau's.
84. 1.25.4When Esau returns, Isaac confirms the blessing given to Jacob.
85. 1.25.5Isaac gives Esau a lesser blessing with the promise of breaking his brother's yoke.
86. 1.26.1Isaac's anxiety came from fatherly love; his refusal to change the blessing came from prophetic knowledge.
87. 1.26.2Isaac acted both as father and as prophet.
88. 1.26.3Even Esau's blessing holds out hope to the first people if it believes.
89. 1.26.4Salvation is open to all; delay lies in the human will.
90. 1.26.5Esau may yet be blessed by casting off his yoke, since each is free to come to faith.
91. 1.27.1Moses' deeds continue the pattern of prefiguration begun with Adam.
92. 1.27.2The patriarchs' deeds imperfectly imitate what is fully realized in Christ.
93. 1.28.1Moses is born under Pharaoh's decree.
94. 1.28.2Moses' rescue on the water parallels Herod's threat to the infant Christ.
95. 1.28.3Pharaoh's daughter finds Moses, his sister brings his mother to nurse him, and he is adopted.
96. 1.29.1Moses' sister signifies the law, Pharaoh's daughter the Gentiles.
97. 1.29.2The synagogue nursed Christ according to the flesh, while the Gentile church adopted him.
98. 1.29.3Moses' killing of the Egyptian prefigures Christ's victory over the devil for his people.
99. 1.29.4Christ bound the strong man and freed his people, yet was rejected by them, as Moses was.
100. 1.30.1The burning bush prefigures the church, burned by persecution but not consumed.
101. 1.30.2Iniquities rage against the church without consuming it.
102. 1.31.1Moses' rod becomes a serpent and then a rod again.
103. 1.31.2The rod turned serpent signifies Christ, God of the ages, slandered as Beelzebul.
104. 1.31.3The hand made white in Moses' bosom signifies the glorification of the faithful at rest.
105. 1.31.4The hand's restoration shows the glory is still future; water turned to blood signifies baptism leading to the Eucharist.
106. 1.32.1The patriarchal deeds agree in every respect with their fulfilment in Christ.
107. 1.32.2The Old Testament events are real history and at the same time images of God's later work.
108. 1.32.3The pattern continues after the exodus.
109. 1.33.1At Marah the bitter water is made sweet by wood.
110. 1.33.2From Marah the people come to Elim with its springs and palms.
111. 1.33.3The wood itself had no power to sweeten the water.
112. 1.33.4God did not need the wood to change the water.
113. 1.34.1Waters in Scripture can signify peoples.
114. 1.34.2The bitter people, like the water, is made sweet by the mystery of the wood.
115. 1.34.3The wood prefigures the cross, which sweetens the peoples.
116. 1.35.1Deuteronomy's "your life hanging" and Jeremiah's "wood in his bread" point to the cross.
117. 1.35.2The wood of Moses' rod works all the wonders of the exodus.
118. 1.35.3"There" God gave justification, judgments, and testing, which refers to the deed, not the place.
119. 1.36.1The cross contains justification, judgment, and testing.
120. 1.36.2Elim's twelve springs and seventy palms signify the apostles and the seventy disciples; the people settle by the waters, the enduring apostles.
121. 1.38.1The quails and the manna are introduced.
122. 1.38.2Each receives the same measure of manna; excess breeds worms, and what is left melts.
123. 1.38.3The double portion, the sabbath, and the omer kept in a golden jar.
124. 1.39.1The manna was given to test obedience.
125. 1.39.2God tests the people by the manna; flesh in the evening, bread in the morning.
126. 1.39.3The evening quails signify the people's clinging to worldly desire until the end of the age.
127. 1.39.4The quails were given once as a figure; the manna tests worthiness for the true bread from heaven.
128. 1.40.1The equal measure of manna signifies the heavenly food, undivided in power, given equally to all.
129. 1.40.2Manna gathered beyond measure signifies teaching beyond the heavenly gift, corrupted and destroyed at Christ's judgment.
130. 1.41.1The double portion on the sixth day signifies preparing good works for the eternal rest.
131. 1.41.2The sixth day signifies the sixth millennium, in which we must prepare for the coming rest.
132. 1.41.3In the eternal rest we will have only what we prepared beforehand.
133. 1.42.1The jar of manna kept for future generations no longer exists.
134. 1.42.2The golden jar of manna prefigures Christ's body and the faithful keeping of the spiritual food.
135. 2.1.1The command to Hosea to take a wife of fornication is introduced.
136. 2.1.2Hilary quotes Hosea's promise of a new covenant and betrothal.
137. 2.1.3Paul applies Hosea's prophecy to the church of Jews and Gentiles.
138. 2.2.1Hosea's marriage and children are realized spiritually by God.
139. 2.2.2The beasts, birds, and serpents of Hosea's covenant signify kinds of sinful men tamed by Christ's peace.
140. 2.3.1Heaven hearing heaven and earth hearing earth signify the divine and human natures in Christ and our future likeness to God.
141. 2.3.2Grain, wine, and oil cannot literally hear.
142. 2.3.3Grain, wine, and oil signify the sacraments; God makes the Gentiles his people.
143. 2.4.1Israel, chosen in Abraham, fell into sin and idolatry.
144. 2.4.2Israel loses its election; the harlot's later children, the Gentiles, are called sons of God.
145. 2.4.3Hosea's marriage shows Gentile ignorance joined to prophetic teaching, producing children of God.
146. 2.5.1Hosea's harlot bride justifies seeing the church prefigured in Rahab.
147. 2.5.2Moses gave Joshua the name Jesus, already prepared in heaven for the eternal leader.
148. 2.6.1Joshua led Israel into the promised land as Jesus leads the church into the inheritance.
149. 2.6.2Joshua's circumcision with stone knives and division of the Jordan prefigure Christ's spiritual circumcision and division of peoples.
150. 2.6.3Joshua's twelve stones prefigure the apostolic teaching drawn from the law and still found in it.
151. 2.7.1The division of the Jordan is introduced.
152. 2.7.2The halted and flowing waters signify those who stop their sins at Christ's coming and those swept into the world's condemnation.
153. 2.8.1The story of Rahab is introduced.
154. 2.8.2Rahab hides the spies and confesses their God.
155. 2.8.3The spies promise to spare Rahab's house, marked by the scarlet cord.
156. 2.8.4Jericho falls on the seventh day and Rahab's house is saved.
157. 2.9.1Rahab receiving the spies signifies the church receiving the law and prophets, which confess God and foretell his incarnation.
158. 2.9.2The scarlet cord signifies Christ's royal robe and the blood of his passion.
159. 2.9.3The scarlet sign links to the Passover blood and the blood of the covenant; outside the house, as outside the church, is death.
160. 2.10.1Jericho prefigures the world, which will fall at the last trumpet while the church is saved.
161. 2.10.2The six days signify six thousand years; the world will be dissolved in the seventh and the church preserved.
162. 2.11.1Scripture must be read with discernment between literal and typological meaning, though nothing in it is empty.
163. 2.12.1Even the simple narratives of Scripture teach about God's power, care, and justice.
164. 2.13.1Hilary lists the events of Israel's history.
165. 2.13.2All the Old Testament history reveals the Father and the Son, and Christ as God and man.
166. 2.14.1These things were written down so that later generations might see the present in the past.
167. 2.14.2Scripture was written for our understanding, not because its truths needed later recognition.
168. 2.14.3Scripture teaches posterity the Father and the Son from the beginning; the text then breaks off.
169. 2.15.1A final fragment: Elijah will turn the fathers to the faith already held by the sons.