On First Principles 4.3.4–4.3.15

All these things have been said by us to show that the aim of the Holy Spirit, who deigned to give us the divine Scriptures, is not that we should be edified by the letter alone, or by it in all things, since we often find it impossible and not sufficient in itself, that is, since through it sometimes things not only irrational but even impossible are indicated; but that we should understand that certain things have been woven into this visible history which, when considered and understood inwardly, bring forth a law useful to human beings and worthy of God. But lest anyone suspect us of saying that we think no history in Scripture happened, because we suspect that some of it did not happen; or that no precepts of the law stand according to the letter, because we say that some cannot be kept according to the letter, where either reason or the possibility of the thing does not allow it; or that we do not think that what is written about the Saviour was fulfilled in a sensible way as well, or that his precepts are not to be kept according to the letter: we must answer that we hold it clearly settled that in very many things the truth of the history both can and must be kept. For who can deny that Abraham was buried in the double cave in Hebron, and Isaac and Jacob too, and each of their wives? Or who doubts that Shechem was given to Joseph as his portion? Or that Jerusalem is the chief city of Judea, in which the temple of God was built by Solomon? And countless other things. For the things that stand according to the history are far more numerous than those that contain a purely spiritual sense. Then again, who would not affirm that the commandment which enjoins, “Honour your father and mother, that it may be well with you,” suffices even without any spiritual interpretation and is necessary for those who keep it, especially since Paul, repeating it in the same words, has confirmed this very commandment? And what need is there to speak of what is said, “You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill, nor steal, you shall not bear false witness,” and the rest of this kind? As for what is commanded in the Gospel, there can be no doubt at all that very many things are to be observed according to the letter, as when he says, “But I say to you, do not swear at all”; and when he says, “Whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart”; and what is commanded in the apostle Paul: “Admonish the unruly, comfort the faint-hearted, support the weak, be patient with all,” and very many other things.

Nevertheless, if one reads more attentively, I do not doubt that in very many cases he will be uncertain whether this or that history is to be thought true according to the letter or less true, and whether this or that precept is to be observed according to the letter or not. Therefore one must strive with much zeal and labour, so that every reader may understand with all reverence that he is dealing with divine, not human, words set down in the holy books. The understanding, then, which we see ought to be followed worthily and consistently in the holy Scriptures is, we think, of this kind.

The divine writings declare that a certain nation on earth was chosen by God, which they have called by many names: sometimes this whole nation is called Israel, sometimes Jacob; and especially when this nation was divided into two parts by Jeroboam son of Nebat, the ten tribes that came under him were called Israel, while the other two, with which was also the tribe of Levi and the tribe descended from the royal line of David, were named Judah. The whole region that this nation possessed, which it had received from God, was called Judea, in which the chief city was Jerusalem; and it is called the mother-city as being, as it were, the mother of many cities. The names of these cities you will find scattered frequently in the other divine books too, but gathered together in one place in the book of Joshua son of Nun. Since these things are so, the holy apostle, wishing somehow to raise our understanding from the earth and lift it up, says in a certain place, “Look at Israel according to the flesh”; by which he certainly indicates that there is another Israel, which is not “according to the flesh” but according to the spirit. And again in another place he says, “For not all who are of Israel are Israel.”

Taught by him, then, that there is one “Israel according to the flesh” and another according to the spirit, when the Saviour says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” we do not take this as those do who are earthly-minded, that is, the Ebionites, who by their very name are called poor (for “Ebion” means “poor” among the Hebrews); but we understand that there is a race of souls which is called Israel, as the interpretation of the name itself indicates, for “Israel” is interpreted “a mind seeing God” or “a man seeing God.” Again, the apostle reveals such things about Jerusalem: “The Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother.” And in another of his epistles he says, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to a multitude of angels praising together, and to the church of the firstborn enrolled in heaven.” If, then, there are souls in this world that are called Israel, and in heaven a city that is named Jerusalem, it follows that the cities said to belong to the nation of Israel have the heavenly Jerusalem as their mother-city; and accordingly we understand this of all Judea, of which we think the prophets also spoke in certain mystical narratives, when they prophesied anything about Judea or about Jerusalem, or when the holy histories declare that this or that kind of invasion befell Judea or Jerusalem. Whatever, then, is narrated or prophesied about Jerusalem, if we listen to the words of Paul as of “Christ speaking in him,” we must understand as said, in keeping with his view, of that city which he calls the heavenly Jerusalem, and of all those places or cities which are said to be cities of the holy land, of which Jerusalem is the mother-city. For it is of these cities that we must think the Saviour too, wishing to call us to a higher understanding, promises to those who have managed well the money entrusted to them by him that they will have authority “over ten cities” or “over five cities.”

If, then, the prophecies made about Judea and Jerusalem, and about Israel and Judah and Jacob, signify certain divine mysteries when they are not understood by us carnally, it certainly follows that the prophecies uttered about Egypt and the Egyptians, or about Babylon and the Babylonians, and about Sidon and the Sidonians, are not to be understood as prophesied about the Egypt that lies on earth, or about Babylon, Tyre or Sidon. For what the prophet Ezekiel prophesied about Pharaoh king of Egypt cannot fit any man who seems to have reigned in Egypt, as the very context of the reading plainly shows. Likewise what is said about the prince of Tyre cannot be understood as said of some man as king of Tyre. And what is said in many places in Scripture, and especially in Isaiah, about Nebuchadnezzar, how can we possibly take it of a man? For it is not a man who is said “to have fallen from heaven,” or who was “Lucifer,” or “who rose in the morning.” Nor do I know whether anyone who has understanding could take what is said in Ezekiel about Egypt, that it is “to be laid waste for forty years,” so that no “human foot” will be found in it, and that it is to be so devastated by war that human blood will rise through the whole land up to the knees, as said of this earthly Egypt, which borders on Ethiopia. But we must consider whether it may not be understood more worthily in this way: as there is a heavenly Jerusalem and Judea, and without doubt a nation dwelling in it which is called Israel, so it is possible that there are also certain places near these which seem to be called Egypt, or Babylon, or Tyre, or Sidon, and that the princes of those places, and the souls, if any dwell in those places, are called Egyptians, Babylonians, Tyrians and Sidonians. From these, too, in accordance with the manner of life that they lead there, a kind of captivity seems to come about, by which they are said to have gone down from Judea into Babylonia or into Egypt, from better and higher places, or to have been scattered among various other nations.

For perhaps, as those who leave this world by this common death are distributed according to their acts and merits, as they have been judged to deserve, some into the place called “the underworld,” others “into the bosom of Abraham,” and through various places or dwellings; so also from those places, as if dying there, if one may say so, they come down from the upper regions into this underworld. For the underworld to which the souls of the dying are led from here is, I believe, called by Scripture “the lower underworld” because of this distinction, as it says in the Psalms: “And you have delivered my soul from the lower underworld.” Each of those, then, who come down to earth is appointed, according to his merits or to the place he had there, to be born in this world in different places, or nations, or ways of life, or infirmities, or to be begotten of religious or of less pious parents; so that it sometimes happens that an Israelite comes down among the Scythians and a poor Egyptian is brought to Judea. Yet our Saviour came to gather “the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel”; and when very many of the Israelites did not accept his teaching, those who were from the nations were called. Hence it will seem to follow that the prophecies uttered about the individual nations should rather be referred to souls and to their various heavenly dwellings. And the histories of the events said to have happened to the nation of Israel, or to Jerusalem, or to Judea, when this or that nation attacked them, must be examined and searched out, since in very many cases they did not take place bodily, to see how these things rather fit those nations of souls which dwelt in this heaven that is said “to pass away,” or which must be thought to dwell there even now.

But if anyone demands from us evident and quite clear proofs of these things from the holy Scriptures, we must answer that it was the counsel of the Holy Spirit rather to hide these things and to cover them more deeply in what seem to be histories of events, in which some are said to go down into Egypt, or to be taken captive into Babylonia, or in those very regions some are “greatly humbled” and brought under the service of masters, while others in those very places of captivity were held famous and magnificent, so that they held powers and principalities and ruled over peoples. All these things, as we said, are hidden and concealed and covered in the histories of holy Scripture, because “the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid, and in his joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Consider carefully here whether it is not indicated that the very soil and surface, so to speak, of Scripture, that is, what is read according to the letter, is the “field,” full and flowering with plants of every kind, while that higher and deeper spiritual understanding is the very “treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden,” which the Holy Spirit through Isaiah calls “dark, invisible and hidden treasures”; and that, in order that they may be found, there is need of the help of God, who alone can “break” the “bronze gates” by which they are shut in and hidden, “and shatter the iron bolts and bars” by which entrance is barred to all the things written and covered in Genesis about the different kinds of souls, and about those seeds and generations which either belong to kinship with Israel or are separated farther from its offspring; and also what that descent “into Egypt of the seventy souls” is, so that the “seventy souls” become in Egypt “like the stars of heaven in multitude.” But since not all who were from them are “the light of this world” (“for not all who are of Israel are Israel”), some from these seventy souls also become “like the sand that is by the seashore, innumerable.”

This descent of the holy fathers into Egypt, that is, into this world, may be seen to have been granted by the providence of God for the enlightenment of the rest and the instruction of the human race, so that through them the other souls might be enlightened and helped. “For to them first were entrusted the oracles of God,” because that race alone is said “to see God”; for this is what the name Israel means when interpreted. And now it follows that we should apply and interpret accordingly the fact that Egypt is struck with ten plagues so that it may let the people of God go out, and what is done in the desert with the people, and that the tabernacle is constructed from the contributions of the whole people, and that the priestly vestment is woven, and whatever is said about the vessels of the ministry, because, as it is written, they truly contain in themselves “a shadow” and form “of heavenly things.” For Paul says plainly of them that they “serve the shadow and copy of heavenly things.” In this same law is also contained by what laws and ordinances they are to live in the holy land. Threats are also set before those who transgress the law; and for those who needed purification various kinds of purification are handed down, as for people who would often be defiled, so that through these they might at last come to that one purification after which it is no longer permitted to be defiled. The people itself is also brought to a census, though not all of them; for childish souls do not yet have the time to be numbered by the divine command, nor even those souls that cannot become the head of another but are themselves subject to others as to a head, whom Scripture has named “women”; they are certainly not brought into that number which is commanded by God, but only those are numbered who are called men, to show, that is, that the women cannot be numbered separately, but are included in those who are called men. Above all, however, those come to the holy number who are ready to go out to the wars of Israel, who can fight against those foes and enemies whom “the Father subjects to the Son sitting at his right hand,” so that “he may destroy every principality and power”: so that by these ranks of his soldiers, who, “serving as soldiers” for God, “do not entangle themselves in worldly affairs,” he may overthrow the kingdoms of the adversary; by whom “the shields of faith” are carried and the “weapons” of wisdom brandished, on whom “the helmet of the hope of salvation” flashes and “the breastplate of love” fortifies the breast filled with God. Such soldiers seem to me to be indicated, and to be prepared for wars of this kind, those who in the divine books are ordered by God's command to be numbered. But far more glorious and perfect than these are those indicated whose very “hairs of the head” are said to be numbered. Those who were punished for their sins, whose bodies “fell in the desert,” seem to bear the likeness of those who made no little progress, but for various reasons could not at all reach the goal of perfection, because they are said “to have murmured,” or “worshipped idols,” or “committed sexual immorality,” or to have thought something such as it would certainly not be lawful even to conceive in the mind. Nor do I think it empty of mystery that certain men who had many cattle and many animals go ahead and seize a place suitable for pasture and the feeding of cattle, which the right hand of Israel's warfare had defended first of all. Having asked Moses for this place, they are separated beyond the streams of the Jordan and set apart from possession of the holy land. This Jordan may be seen, according to the pattern of “heavenly things,” to water and flood thirsty souls and the senses that lie near it. Here not even this will seem idle: that Moses hears from God what is written in the law of Leviticus, while in Deuteronomy the people become hearers of Moses and learn from him what they could not hear from God. For this reason Deuteronomy is called, as it were, the second law; which to some will seem to signify this very thing, that as the first “law,” which “was given through Moses,” ceases, a second legislation seems to be shaped, which is handed on in a special way by Moses to Joshua his successor, who is certainly believed to bear the form of our Saviour, by whose second law, that is, the precepts of the Gospel, all things are brought to perfection.

But we must consider whether it may not rather seem to indicate this: that as in Deuteronomy a clearer and plainer legislation is declared than in what was written first, so also, beyond that coming of the Saviour which he fulfilled in humility when he “took the form of a servant,” that clearer and more glorious second coming “in the glory of his Father” is indicated, and in it the pattern of Deuteronomy will be fulfilled, when in the kingdom of heaven all the saints will live by the laws of that “eternal Gospel”; and as by his present coming he has fulfilled the “law” which “has a shadow of good things to come,” so by that glorious coming the shadow of this coming too will be fulfilled and brought to perfection. For so the prophet said of him: “The breath of our face, Christ the Lord, of whom we said that under his shadow we shall live among the nations”; that is, when he will more worthily transfer all the saints from the temporal Gospel to the “eternal Gospel,” as John indicated in the Apocalypse concerning the “eternal Gospel.”

But in all these things let it suffice us to fit our understanding to the rule of piety, and to think of the words of the Holy Spirit in this way: that the discourse does not shine as something composed in the eloquence of human frailty, but, as it is written, “All the glory of the king is within,” and the “treasure” of divine meanings is enclosed within the “frail vessel” of the humble letter. But if anyone, out of curiosity, seeks the explanation of each point, let him come and hear with us how the apostle Paul, searching “by the Holy Spirit,” who “searches even the depths of God,” “the depth of divine wisdom and knowledge,” and yet not able to reach the end and, so to speak, the inmost knowledge, cries out in despair of the matter and in amazement, and says: “O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” And in what despair of perfect comprehension he cried this out, hear him saying: “How unsearchable are the judgments of God, and how untraceable his ways!” For he did not say that “the judgments of God” can be searched only with difficulty, but that they cannot be searched at all; nor did he say that his “ways” can be traced only with difficulty, but that they cannot be traced. For however far someone advances in searching, and progresses by more intent study, helped also by the grace of God and “enlightened” in understanding, he will not be able to reach the perfect end of the things that are sought. Nor has any created mind the possibility of comprehending them in any way; but as it finds a little of the things sought, it sees again others that must be sought; and if it reaches these too, it will see in turn many more from them that ought to be sought. Therefore the most wise Solomon too, looking into the nature of things through wisdom, says: “I said, I will become wise; and wisdom itself was made far from me, far more than it was; and who will find its profound depth?” And Isaiah, knowing that the beginnings of things cannot be found by mortal nature, nor even by those natures which, though more divine than the human, were nevertheless themselves made or created, knowing, then, that neither beginning nor end can be found by any of these, says: “Tell the former things, what they were, and we shall know that you are gods; or announce the last things, what they are, and then we shall see that you are gods.” For my Hebrew teacher too used to teach this: that because the beginning or end of all things cannot be comprehended by anyone except only the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, Isaiah said in the figure of his vision that there were only two seraphim, who “with two wings cover the face” of God, “with two the feet, and with two fly, crying to one another and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of your glory.” Since, then, the seraphim alone have both pairs of their wings at the face of God and at his feet, we must dare to declare that neither “the army of the holy angels” nor the holy “thrones, nor dominions, nor principalities, nor powers” can know fully the beginning of all things and the ends of the universe. But we must understand that these holy spirits and powers which he has listed are indeed nearest to those beginnings, and attain as much as the rest cannot reach; yet whatever these powers have learned by the revelation of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, though they will be able to attain very much, and the higher much more than the lower, it is nevertheless impossible for them to comprehend everything, because it is written, “Very many of the works of God are in secret.” Hence it is to be desired that each one should always, according to his strength, “stretch himself out to the things that are ahead, forgetting the things that are behind,” both “toward better works” and toward a purer sense and understanding, “through Jesus Christ our Saviour,” “to whom be glory for ever.”

Let everyone, then, who cares for the truth “care little about names and words,” since different nations have different customs of speech; and let him pay more attention to what is meant than to the words by which it is meant, especially in matters so great and so difficult; as when it is asked, for example, whether there is any substance in which neither colour nor shape nor touch nor size is to be conceived, perceptible to the mind alone, which each one names as he pleases. For the Greeks called it asōmaton, that is, incorporeal, while the divine Scriptures have named it “invisible,” because the apostle declares that God is “invisible”: for he says that Christ is “the image of the invisible God.” And again he says that through Christ “all things were created, visible and invisible.” By this it is declared that among creatures too there are certain substances “invisible” by their own nature. But these, though they themselves are not bodily, nevertheless use bodies, even though they themselves are better than bodily substance. But that substance of the Trinity which is the beginning and cause of all things, “from which are all things, and through which are all things, and in which are all things,” must be believed to be neither a body nor in a body, but wholly incorporeal. Let it suffice to have said these things briefly, though by way of digression, yet prompted by the sequence of the subject itself, in order to show that there are some things whose meaning cannot properly be explained at all in any “words of human language,” but is expressed rather by a simpler understanding than by any precise use of words. To this rule the understanding of the divine writings must also be held, so that what is said in them may be judged not by the poverty of the language but by the divinity of the Holy Spirit who inspired their writing.