On Distinctions of Foods and the Heifer in Leviticus

Contents

Reading pages: 1–9 · 10–15

1. 1Trials, whether from demons or other causes, test and purify believers, as Scripture and the fate of Israel in the desert show.
2. 3Suffering must come before honor, as the examples of farmers, helmsmen, runners, Joseph, David, Daniel, Moses, the prophets, and the apostles show.
3. 4Methodius tells Kilonia that true wisdom accepts afflictions, which lead by the narrow way to the crown of life, since this life is short.
4. 5Self-control and patience in trials are health for the soul, as Job on the dunghill shows; affliction is God's discipline, like dung that makes a plant fruitful.
5. 6Turning to the question of the dead body in a house (Num 19), Methodius argues that Christ, Peter's vision, and the apostolic council set aside the Law's purity and food rules.
6. 7God gave the food laws not because foods defile but to train Israel by small commands, as teachers start children with strokes; the Law is a shadow, the gospel an image, of the good things to come.
7. 8The food laws are shadows: the divided hoof means an active life and chewing the cud means understanding Scripture, and the psalm's ivory palace means resurrection bodies, not elephant bone.
8. 9With Christ's coming the Law's purifications ended; the ashes of the red heifer ran out, yet the Law forbade any substitute or any omission of the rite.
9. 10Since the heifer's ashes have run out, Jews cannot keep the Law literally without transgressing it; the true circumcision is of the heart by the Spirit.
10. 11The red heifer is Christ's flesh; its burning with cedar, hyssop, and scarlet images the Trinity, and its ashes signify his real death and burial, into which believers are baptized.
11. 13The dead man in the house means the soul dead in sin, whose ways defile those who enter; dead bodies themselves are not unclean, since God will raise them.
12. 14The field of the dead, the bone, and the grave signify incontinence, apostates, and hypocrites; the seventh day is the end of life, and the ashes signify repentant humility.
13. 15The true purification is the blood of Christ, which cleanses souls as well as bodies.