Book of the Promises and Predictions of God 2.2–2.8

Of the house of God in the holy Church. A promise made and figured. Believed and seen in Exodus. It is said to the same Moses: “See that you make the tabernacle as it was shown you on the holy mountain.” And it is declared from what offerings that tabernacle should rise. “The sons of Israel,” God says, “shall give as an offering hyacinth wool, twisted fine linen, purple, scarlet twice dyed.” From these, with varied work, the hangings of the tabernacle and also the priestly vestment were made, so that all mysteries might be revealed in the time of the future Church. For the coverings of the tabernacle divine authority commands hyacinth skins, others dyed red, and eleven curtains to be made of goats’ hair. That all these were signs, the testimonies of the law itself proclaim. In the hyacinth color there is a certain paleness agreeing with brightness, fitting fasts and alms. Hence the holy archangel Raphael says to Tobit: “Prayer is good with fasting and alms.” In fasts paleness, in alms brightness shines out, which show the figure of hyacinth. The clean fine linen, as the Apocalypse says, is the righteous deeds of the saints. As for “twisted”: through many tribulations the just must enter the kingdom of God. Purple is the royal garment, with which our King himself, Christ the Lord, was clothed in his passion. In the scarlet twice dyed the holy martyrdoms glow, which are dyed once in the baptism of Christ in blood and dyed again in the gore of their own shedding. For so the Lord himself was dyed, once in the Jordan, again in his passion, of which he says to his disciples: “I have a baptism to be baptized with, which you do not know.” This the red-dyed and hyacinth skins attest. Two sides of the tabernacle extend a hundred by a hundred cubits, and the two ends fifty by fifty: as mercy and truth meeting each other, justice and peace kissing each other, showing from four sides with joined corners a worthy tabernacle, the future temple of God, the Church, which in the hundredth and fiftieth number of the Psalms sings to its Lord mercy and judgment. Nor without mystery is the tabernacle covered above with eleven curtains of goats’ hair, so as to show that the whole world is guilty before God and lives under penance. For the psalm of that number has as its beginning: “Save me, God, for the holy man has failed.” And it tells why he failed: “For truths have been diminished among the sons of men”; to save them, Truth itself came down from heaven, deigning to dwell with men on earth. The interior of the tabernacle is adorned with these things. Twenty columns on each side of incorruptible wood prefigure not only the holy apostles but also the teachers of the churches, whom Paul too shows, saying: “Peter and John, who seemed to be columns, gave the right hand of fellowship to me and Barnabas.” For Barnabas was received into the apostolate in order, the Lord commanding and saying: “Set apart for me Barnabas and Paul for the work to which I have called them.” In this work Wisdom herself, building herself a house, set up seven columns; when the earth had melted away under the onset of sins, she herself strengthened its columns. The number of these columns on the two sides of the tabernacle is forty, showing the fortieth day of the Lord’s ascension, on which he said to his disciples: “Stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” The columns are joined by three bars, because the teachers of the churches are bound together healthfully by the bond of the trinity of faith, hope, and love; on silver bases and with golden capitals, as in works of mercy, so that all the beauty of the columns may rise in virginal holiness. The holy of holies is in the inner part of the tabernacle, holding the ark of the covenant full of mysteries. Into it the priest enters once a year with the blood of another; receiving from it the divine answer, he sounds that word which the Word, taking flesh for our redemption, consecrated as the ark not of the old but of the new Testament, “in which are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” To it the true chief of priests himself entered once with his own blood into the holy place; for Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To him the prophet says: “Arise, Lord, into your rest, you and the ark of your holiness.” The table placed there and the altar, which received the flesh being consecrated and the offerings of the one sacrificing, what else do we understand in these than the cross on which our Lamb was sacrificed? He, priest and victim, confirming on his table the sanctified bread, his consecrated body. For him the lamp, lit with the sevenfold Spirit, gives light to the whole tabernacle, for his lightning is like light. The courts of this spiritual tabernacle are the hearts of the devout who confess and praise God, of whom the prophet David says: “Into his courts with hymns; confess to him.”

Of the priesthood figured in Aaron, in Christ. A promise made and figured. Believed and seen in Exodus. The Lord commanded Moses to consecrate his brother Aaron to the priesthood, anointed with sanctified oil, so that the very name of anointing might show our Christ the Lord, anointed above his fellows. Aaron’s vestment too is described in mystic detail. “You shall clothe him,” he says, “with a tunic reaching to the feet of hyacinth wool, and put the ephod on his shoulders.” Two emerald stones, each engraved with the names of the sons of Israel, from which little chains of purest gold, running along, would hold the outer bosses of the ephod. Also a square of twelve precious stones of different colors, the breastpiece of judgment, to be placed on the priest’s breast, binding together the two principal parts of the ephod. A girdle too was to be given for his loins, and at the hem of the long tunic fifty golden bells and as many pomegranates were ordered to be set among the bells, so that the whole vestment, made with varied work of these kinds, might shine. For his head these were commanded: a turban of fine linen, and a miter from which a plate inscribed as a title hung, to consecrate the head and forehead of the priest. Each of these fits our priest, Christ the Lord: for the turban of fine linen on his head is, as we said, the righteous deeds of the saints; for Christ is the head of every man, from whom is all righteousness. The royal miter signifies the priesthood and the spiritual marriage. The inscribed title Pilate placed on our priest in his passion. The long tunic is the heart of the mercy of our God, of which the Apostle says: “Put on, as God’s chosen ones, the heart of mercy.” The ephod shows his rule, of which Isaiah says: “A son is born to you, and the rule is upon his shoulders.” The two stones on the shoulders are the two commandments of love of God and neighbor, in which the engraved names of the twelve tribes are contained, already marking in this number the twelve disciples whom our priest carried on his shoulders with perfect love. For “when he had loved his disciples,” says John the evangelist, “he loved them to the end.” The little chains from these, holding the bosses, are the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, continence. The breastpiece on the breast is all the teaching of the high priest drawn from precious morals, so that he may have, as the Apostle says, a reasonable service. That our priest is girded the ninety-second psalm shows: “The Lord has clothed himself with strength and girded himself.” In the fifty bells and as many pomegranates are the tongues of the churches, which through the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost rested on the disciples, divided in the form of fire. As the number itself shows; from which the pomegranates are the whole Church throughout the world, holding the peoples joined together, like the seeds within, in the bond of peace and grace, so that one covering of love may cover them. For as the bells, the apostles, rang out, the pomegranates were at once moved, saying in the Acts of the Apostles: “Are not these who speak Galileans by birth? And how do we each recognize in them the language in which we were born?” And it continues: “For in various tongues they magnified God.” But all these are moved by the steps of the free priest as he enters the holy of holies, where our Mediator has now gone up for us, to appear before the face of God.

Of punishment on the peoples who transgressed and did not keep the commandments of Christ. A prediction made and figured. Believed and seen in Exodus. While the things we spoke of above were being commanded to Moses to be done on Mount Sinai, the people transgressed against God and fell into the crime of idolatry. It makes a calf of gold through Aaron, and offered victims and sacrifices to it in insult to the true God, saying: “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” “And they forgot God who freed them, who did great things in Egypt, wonders in the land of Ham, and terrible things at the Red Sea.” Through our priest too such apostate souls are rebuked in the Gospel. For he says thus: “If I had not done among them the signs that no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.” And punishment follows from the grave fault. “The Lord said to Moses: Go down quickly, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have transgressed. They have made themselves gods of gold and said to them: These are your gods, Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And now let me alone, that I may destroy them, and I will make you a great nation, greater than this one.” The merciful Lord gives time for intercession when he says, “Let me alone.” For God did not depend on the will of man, but man on the will of God. And when Moses had entreated the Lord in many ways, offering himself for the sin of the people, he expressed in figure our Mediator, who laid down his life for the impious. For Christ, as the Apostle says, died for the impious. Yet that great sin does not lack punishment, for sin cannot be left unpunished. For Moses, coming down from the mountain and seeing the people running riot, stood in the midst of the camp and said: “Whoever is the Lord’s, let him come to me.” And when only one of the twelve tribes came over to him, he gave it this command: “Thus says the Lord: let each of you take his sword in his hand and go through from camp to camp, and let each one strike father, brother, son.” When they had done it without hesitation, Moses said: “You have filled your hands today for the Lord, each in his son and in his brother, that a blessing may be given you.” In these he shows such disciples of our Mediator as those to whom the Lord Jesus says: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father, mother, brothers, children, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” And again it is written: “Those who said to their father and mother, I do not know you, and to their brothers, I do not know you, and hated their children, these will keep your covenant.” This the holy martyrs did, called through grace, rewarded with perpetual felicity.

Of Christ the Lord figured in all the sacrifices. A promise made and figured. Believed and seen in Exodus. Again Moses is ordered to go up the mountain a second time. And he is commanded what the people should offer in sacrifices of animals and birds, under a fixed measure of fine flour mixed with oil, for sin, for solemnities, for vows, or for certain new moons and feast days. A calf, it is said, without blemish, referring to Christ, the truth of which these things are signs. “It will please God,” it is said, “more than a young calf that puts forth horns and hoofs.” The year-old lamb without blemish is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. The sheep from the flock is the same one of whom Isaiah says: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter.” The ram from the flock is the same Christ the Lord, who says through the prophet: “My horn shall be exalted like that of the unicorn.” And Habakkuk: “Horns,” he says, “are in his hands.” The kid from the flock is Christ the Lord, who, bearing not his own sins but those of others, brought into his tabernacle the skins of which the haircloth of the penance that is laid on is woven; who also says through David: “I will break all the horns of sinners, and the horns of the just shall be exalted.” In the turtledove and the dove we recognize the Church. For “the turtledove has found itself a nest where it may lay its young.” And he says that his bride, his chosen one, is one dove. Its young he orders to be offered in sacrifice when the Lord Jesus says: “Let the little children come to me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” For little children too, when they are consecrated by his baptism, are buried with him in death, so that in them too the body of sin may be destroyed. The distinction between sins of ignorance and of knowledge, for which the sacrifice of a contrite heart, like fine flour fried in oil, is offered, is also distinguished in our sacrifice, when the soul says: “Do not remember the sins of my youth and of my ignorance.” Blessed Peter, less careful, fell into these when, as the Lord foretold his passion, not knowing that it had been promised through the Law and the Prophets, he said: “Far be it from you, Lord; be merciful to yourself; this shall not happen.” And the Lord: “Get behind me, Satan; for you do not mind the things of God but those of men.” This sin of ignorance, and the sin of knowing denial, and also of youth (presuming on which he had said to the Lord, “I will lay down my life for you”), he blotted out entirely by weeping, when he was looked upon and pierced with remorse. And he taught the sinner and presumptuous man in these things to say: “You turned away your face, and I was troubled.” “Heal my soul, for I have sinned against you.” What the people of Christ the Lord should offer for vows and solemnities the apostle Paul shows: “Let us offer,” he says, “the sacrifice of praise continually to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. But do not forget to do good and to share; for with such sacrifices God is pleased.”

That heretics are like the various kinds of leprosy, in the inspection of leprosy. A prediction made and figured. Believed and seen in Leviticus. God commands Moses that the inspection and cleansing of leprosy be expiated by sacrifices of this kind. A pair of birds is to be offered to the priest, of which he offers one and lets the other go. Similar things are done with goats and other cattle. But these mysteries our priest, the Lord Jesus, showed plainly in the Gospel, saying: “Two will be in the field; one will be taken, the other left; and two women at the mill; one will be taken, the other left.” How great a difference there is between being taken and being left, the dove and the raven sent out of the ark show. For Noah, taking the dove back to himself into the ark, kept it to be preserved for sacrifice; the raven, roaming and wandering, he left. So he willed lambs to be distinguished from goats, so the wise virgins to be separated from the foolish, namely souls through grace, which, purifying them with a worthy offering, the sacrifice of a contrite heart (which the fine flour fried in oil signified), he brings with him into the eternal Jerusalem, whose spiritual bridegroom he is, into the homeland; the heretics being driven out, because lepers are sent outside the camp. Nor do I think the distinction of leprosy itself should be passed over, but should be discussed in some part, as far as is given. For leprosy in the head marks the Manichaeans, the Priscillianists, and their accomplices. For since Christ is the head of man, and God the head of Christ, while they oppose to God himself, the head, some prince of darkness or other in their disputations, they themselves, spattered with leprosy in the head of their error, deserved to be driven outside the camp. Leprosy in the beard marks the Arians, Photinians, and Nestorians, who, preaching our high priest Christ as less in divinity, or as a mere man, not God and man, and thinking otherwise of Christ than the Catholic faith holds and has handed down, as lepers in the beard attack him whom the prophet David introduces in the likeness of Aaron, calling Christ the Lord the true chief of priests: “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity. Like the ointment on the head, which runs down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron.” These, then, who leaving Catholic unity thought the ointment that ran down on our high priest’s beard should be defiled by the doctrine of their error, being found lepers in the beard, were themselves also driven outside the camp. Leprosy in the body: the Donatists, Maximianists, Luciferians, and others wrapped in similar errors, while they attack the body of Christ, the Lord’s Church throughout the whole world, with human slanders, cast out for the leprosy of their own body, are not received into the camp of God’s people unless they are cleansed by love by the true priest, Christ. But the Pelagians are disfigured on every side by the spot of leprosy, while they strive to pour the clouds of their perverse teaching on both head and body. On the head, in that they say God made man mortal before sin, he who did not make death and does not rejoice in the destruction of the living; for he created all things that they might be. On the body, in that they hold that God’s grace did not seem necessary to man, though one baptism has been consecrated for the remission of all sins. So, defiled in the whole by the spot of leprosy, they too were driven from the Lord’s camp. And when our priest inspects these and distinguishes the various sores, whether it is black in the Manichaeans, red in the Arians, or white or spotted in the Pelagians: “For there must be heresies,” says Paul, “so that those who are approved may be made manifest among you.” As long as souls are held in these various errors, as in the spots of leprosy, the Lord’s camp, as was said, does not admit them. When, pierced by God’s grace, they return from all these heresies to be cleansed, they present themselves in some way to our priest in those ten lepers. When, according to the precept of the Law, he sends them to the priest of the Jews, he cleansed them by the power of the Word as they went on the way, that is, in this life. For their cleansing that precious hen offered herself as a sacrifice, who says: “How often I wished, Jerusalem, to gather your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!” She gathers even the unwilling, whom she knows to belong to the members of her unity; for the Lord knows those who are his. For one of the ten who were cleansed came back and gave thanks to our high priest; for unity knows that glory is to be not in itself but in the Lord, unity which would not put its hope in man, which understood that the good will is prepared by the Lord, which willed to be truly free because it knew that the Son had freed it. But those who are ungrateful to the one who cleanses, or persist in the spots of the leprosy of their error, cannot be received at all into the Lord’s camp. Against them, shut out, our high priest, closing the door, will say: “I do not know you”; so that, sent far off, they may remain outside: dogs, sorcerers, and all who love and make a lie. It was not fitting to say much here, since Origen, discussing each point in his work on Leviticus, has assigned to Christ the Lord what he understood with right faith.

That all things are made clean by alms, in clean and unclean foods. A prediction made and figured. Believed and seen in Leviticus. Among all the commandments delivered by God to Moses on Mount Sinai for instructing God’s people, once the order of sacrifices was complete, the clean animals that the people might take for food were marked off from the unclean by this distinction: those that chew the cud and those with divided hoofs are to be held clean and taken for food. These signify souls that chew the cud of God’s word, with divided hoof, that is, of the two commandments. Of birds and fish too it was commanded by name which the people should touch and which refuse. That this law was given on tablets of stone in keeping with the hardness of heart of the Jews, the Lord testified in the Gospel. But since our earlier fathers, to whom it was revealed, have written out all the allegorical discussions of each of these in long volumes and splendid style, what need is there (given that Christ did not die for nothing, that one baptism has been given for small and great) to pursue them all? For in brief our Mediator, the Lord Jesus, in whom all these things sounded, rebuked the senseless Jews who followed the Law in the letter, not in the spirit, saying: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you tithe mint and cumin and every herb, cleaning the dish and the cup, while inside you are full of robbery and iniquity.” And passing among them alone, he showed a singular sacrifice, saying: “But I tell you, give alms, and behold, all things are clean for you.” O how short and concise a sacrifice, which cleanses the whole man inside and out! Alms free from death, and they purge sins. Alms do not allow one to go into darkness. Alms are a good gift for all who give them, before the most high God. These are what put out the perpetual fires; these resist sins; these feed Christ hungry in the poor; these clothe the naked; these visit the sick; these receive the stranger as guest; these take away all the distress of prison; these end all want; these bring remedies to the rich; these buy eternal life; these lend to God at interest; these hold the kingdom of heaven; these separate the lambs from the goats; these place us at the Judge’s right hand; these join us to the angels; these make sons of God out of slaves. Run together, sinners of every kind; run together, all who are lepers by vices and errors; run together, all who are stained and unclean with any crime whatever, penitent and making vows; run together to so great, concise, and single a sacrifice, offering with all joy. “For God loves a cheerful giver.” As each has what to offer, let the hand offer it. Our chief of priests so instituted this and commanded it to be acceptable above all, that he extended the measures of this sacrifice down to two mites and a cup of cold water, promising peace, even if these are lacking, to men of good will. These are the back parts of God, which, when Moses could not see his face, were revealed to him by the prophetic Spirit, in Christ Jesus, Lord and man, who is the eternal chief of all priests. These things are known to be fulfilled in Leviticus.

That the Jews rejected Christ, the manna, longing for the foods of Egypt. A prediction made and figured. Believed and seen in the book of Numbers. In the book of Numbers the people, with leaders appointed for themselves by Moses, is shown under a fixed census as to how great it was. Becoming forgetful too of their freedom and of grace, longing for the foods of Egypt, it was found to have murmured against God and Moses. “Who will feed us with meat?” they say. “For we remember the fish we ate in Egypt for nothing, the melons, the leeks, the garlic, and the onions. But now,” they say, “our soul is dried up, and there is nothing but manna before our eyes.” Sweet things are rejected; bitter things longed for. A dangerous and grave sickness of the soul brings this about, that it wishes to take harmful things and despises and refuses what is useful and profitable for health. So they rejected the manna, Christ, saying: “We know that God spoke to Moses; but as for this man, we do not know where he is from.” And rebuking them he says: “If you believed Moses, you would surely believe me too; for he wrote of me.” “For I am the living bread which came down from heaven.” Did they not reject the holy manna when they said to Pilate, who wished to release Jesus: “Do not release him, but Barabbas”? Barabbas was a notorious robber; asking that he be released to them, they professed that they longed for the robber’s crimes, as for leeks, onions, garlic, and the sharp, tear-bringing foods of Egypt. To those who murmured the divine majesty gave meat, not to refresh but rather to torment those who ate it. Since, then, the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit of God, and every lazy man is in desires, and the spiritual man rightly asked that the desires of the belly be taken from him, it has been shown that it is impious to desire or ask from God things harmful to the soul, and especially what is asked with murmuring. Let the soul flee offending God with such desire, if it wishes to enter the land of promise.